CABANATUAN CITY – Did you know that a monobloc chair and a ceramic toilet bowl have separately caused the death of two people in the past?
This was among the information shared by the Department of Trade and Industry during a virtual forum on product quality standard with a group of Nueva Ecija media, coinciding with the World Press Freedom Day on Monday.
Bobby Faronilo, chief of the consumer affairs division of DTI-Nueva Ecija, did not state circumstances regarding the death from a monobloc and a toilet bowl but stressed it was the reason behind the inclusion of the two product lines in the long list of the so-called “mandatory products.”
He hinted though that such accidents involved a man who stood on monobloc chairs to reach heights such as in fixing electrical connection while another, instead of sitting, squatted on a toilet bowl.
“Most of the consumer products na delikado at nangangailangang ligtas kaya ito po yung ginawangbatayan ng ICC, international standard po yan,” Faronilo said.
In the household alone, Faronilo presented nearly 100 kinds of appliances and gadgets, excluding mobile phones, in the mandatory product list.
This means that every consumer should at all timeslook for the product standard mark before purchasing such appliances and gadgets. “These may affect life, or worse, cause death,” the DTI official said.
Aside from the household things, the mandatory products also include construction and hardware materials from electric tape to wires, iron, cement and GI sheets, among others.
He presented several types of product standard markings for locally-made and imported products that consumers should find in each item or product, “not on the box.”
Brigida Pili, concurrent DTI–Nueva Ecija provincial director and assistant regional director, urged the public to be more vigilant in product safety.
The online forum, that was participated in by someindustry players and consumer watchdogs, and newsmen covering the agency to promote public safety in time for the World Press Freedom Day.
