Consumer orgs to be recognized as DTI partners

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is crafting guidelines to recognize consumer organizations (COs) to serve as its partner in advocating consumer rights.

On Tuesday, the Consumer Protection and Advocacy Bureau (CPAB) of DTI gathered various consumer organizations from Western Visayas for a consultation on the proposed guidelines.

Judith Degala, head of the Consumer Protection Division of DTI in Western Visayas, said the proposed guidelines are timely amid the open market, making consumers prone to fraudulent and deceptive practices.

“DTI alone can not do itto reach out to consumers. We need this partnership with consumer organizations, among others to help DTI to reach out to all consumers,” she explained.

The guidelines will attempt to streamline and simplify requirements in recognizing consumer organizations, said CPAB Assistant Director Lilian G. Salonga.

One salient point of the guidelines is the reduction of the members for local and national COs to be recognized. For local COs, the membership is trimmed down to seven from 15 required for municipalities and 25 for cities. The minimum membership for national COs is 40 from the previous 50.

Another significant addition is the provision of incentives to COs of up to P50,000 per project per year, depending on their proposal.

“Under this guideline, we really want to make it very reasonable to have these consumer organizations and encouraged you to be recognized by the DTI,” she said.

She added that they would also like to tie up with international institutions advocating consumer rights.

From accreditation, the term has been changed to recognition as the former is usually used for bodies that give certification such as the International Standard Organization (ISO). /