Trade department keeping eye on defective Christmas lights
By Allen V. Estabillo

KORONADAL CITY -- The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is closely monitoring several shopping malls and department stores, which continue to sell Christmas lights that have failed to meet basic quality standards.

Edgar Sales, consumer's welfare division chief of DTI-South Cotabato, said he already issued a verbal warning to stores, which they earlier caught selling unregistered brands of Christmas lights.

"I ordered them to immediately take out those products from their shelves or we will issue a written warning which may result to the confiscation of the products and imposition of penalties," he said.

Sales said they issued the warning after confirming that the Christmas lights sold by a certain store did not bear the product standards (PS) or import commodity clearance (ICC) marks.

"These marks are the consumers' foremost assurance that the products they are buying are safe," he said.

Sales explained that the PS mark signifies that a product has passed the quality standards set by the DTI's Bureau of Product Standards (BPS) while the ICC mark affirms that an imported product was tested and passed the local quality standards.

So far, Sales said only Christmas lights bearing Iluminada, Super Bright and Diamond Bright brands are allowed for sale in the country.

These are all Philippine-made products.

Earlier, the DTI central office warned that retailers of substandard products could face penalties for violation of the BPS mandatory certification scheme, as provided for in department administrative order 2, series of 2002.

The base fine for retailers selling substandard or uncertified products is P25,000 and this could go up or down "depending on the mitigating or aggravating circumstances."

"Substandard Christmas may overheat and cause fire. We are intensifying our market monitoring and enforcement activities against these substandard products to ensure the consumers' safety as they celebrate the holidays," Sales added.

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