DTI seeks additional P300M for consumer protection programs

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) on Tuesday appealed to the Senate for additional P300 million to fund its consumer protection programs.

In pitching for the additional fund, Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual told senators in a hearing that these programs are “grossly unfunded” under the proposed 2024 National Expenditures Program (NEP).

“We want to reorganize our consumer protection activity by centralizing [it], because you cannot expect a junior person running after hoarders or profiteers in an area where there is a lot of people of influence that are operating in the region,” Pascual said during the Senate Committee on Finance hearing on DTI’s proposed P7.91-billion budget for fiscal year 2024.

“So the plan that we have done, this planning, after the budget submission, is to centralize the consumer protection activity in the head office and have a quick response task force… That would require a funding of P300 million to strengthen our consumer protection activities,” he added.

Senator Mark Villar, who presided over the hearing, said these programs are “very relevant” because inflation is the “most important issue right now.”

“It is very relevant that the DTI takes a stronger role in monitoring these hoarders and manipulators,” Villar said.

According to DTI Assistant Secretary Jean Pacheco, the P300 million would fund an inter-DTI strike team to increase their enforcement activities, consumer education and advocacy, complaints-handling, procurement of equipment for the certification and testing of vapes, among others.

Of the P300 million, P130 million will be used to procure equipment for DTI’s certification and testing of vape products, which is in line with their implementation of the law regulating e-cigarettes.

Asked if the consumer protection program would include rice and other basic commodities, Pascual said this is under the Department of Agriculture but the DTI would help them in monitoring food prices. —KBK, GMA Integrated News