Sunday, July 20, 2008 Cabaero: For, of and by the consumers By Nini B. Cabaero Beyond 30
THE financially trying times are making consumers think of ways to work within household budgets despite cuts in expenses and the priorities of food, school, rent and medicine.
Aircons are being kept silent in favor of electric fans. Travel is planned so gasoline costs or fare money get controlled. Some give up schooling; others move to public schools.
Every household must have come up with its own ways of addressing the rising prices of almost everything. And each attempt impacts on the individual or the family unit.
But what about having a community action? What is still unheard of is a concerted action by groups of individuals, even communities, to try to put a stop to unchecked inflation and uncontrollable price increases.
Going around e-mail groups is a call for vehicle owners to take action and influence the pricing of fuel products. It urged vehicle owners not to fill up their tanks but to buy only enough liters to last them on the short term.
Buying less gasoline would impact on the inventory of gas stations, and inventory problems would hopefully push station owners to bring down prices to encourage people to buy more.
The analogy used was in the case of a man who asked his neighbors to buy fewer eggs from the grocery that regularly increased egg prices. When people started buying only two eggs instead of the usual dozen, the grocery began to experience problems with having too many eggs in its inventory.
This inventory problem resonated to the distributor who had eggs piling up at his warehouse and the farmers whose chickens continued to lay eggs even with fewer eggs being bought. The farmer decided to bring down his price, so did the distributor and the grocery because the alternative was to have the eggs rotting away.
It was a case of consumers using collective power and taking action against unbridled price increases.
In the case of buying gasoline, people are resorting to smaller purchases already not only because of the expense but also because of the erratic pricing.
On the national scene, Raul Concepcion of the Consumer and Oil Price Watch has been coming out with statements on fuel rate increases. In Cebu, there are consumer groups around but they have yet to be heard from on what consumers want and what consumers can do.
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If you have your own experience on coping with rising prices, let the Sun.Star website know and share your tips with fellow consumers.
Tips like: When eating out, don’t order drinks. Ask for free drinking water as restaurants are by law already required to serve potable water to customers. Excluding drinks from the bill would bring down or keep at the same old rate the amount you would have to pay for your meal.
The website at www.sunstar.com.ph will come up this week with a message board for people from around the world to post tips as consumers to fellow consumers. It would be a discussion venue for, of and by the consumers. Watch out for it.
