Price increases

With the implementation of the E-VAT, everything suddenly seems very expensive. Can you imagine paying P120 more for you pizza? Or for a P500 gasoline purchase, the gasoline station "subtracts" almost two liters worth of gas for your taxes?

And if that's not bad enough, a number of retailers appear to have taken advantage of the economic crunch by jacking up their prices ("Mahal na ang gasolina!") of what is apparently not new stock. They go about the whole thing with impunity--as if it is perfectly legal--even in the presence of customers.

So my wife and I were shopping in this supermarket here, and were shocked to find merchandisers furiously removing the old tags (at least from sanitary napkins, Nido, Milo, Colgate, etc.), and that whenever we would ask for the new price, we would be told the cashier would have it in her computer as we ring up the items. Fine, we thought, but by that time, how else could we be making choices when we're already at the counter?

On one particular shelf, we found an item that still bore the old tag. We checked and realized that all the others of the same brand had new price tags already. Of course, you know which package we chose. We were happy.

Our happiness was short-lived. We got to the counter where the cashier insisted on ringing up the new price, as indicated by her barcode reader.

We asked her to just bill us the actual price on the package itself. The supervisor was called in and, to solve the issue, the supervisor got our item with the old price, went back to the shelf, and brought in another package of the same brand but with the new price -- their "proof" that it really costs the amount that was on their computer.

But who cares about what's on their computer? The tag on each package is advertising enough; that's actually one of the major things that influence customers in making such decisions. So of course, we also insisted on paying only the price that was on the tag. After all, wasn't that why we chose that particular package?

We advised them that even if they were to ask the DTI Regulatory Division about that snafu, they would be told the same things we were telling them that time. The supervisor shocked us further by admitting that they knew exactly that they were violating the law. She said, "Kabalo mi ana!"

We stood our ground on paying the old price, and finally, the supervisor had to give in to our request. But not after she told her own cashier to shoulder the difference between the old price that we were willing to pay, and their new price. The cashier's face just dropped, but had to willingly comply, lest she be fired.

So only for that, we returned the item. We couldn't make a poor cashier pay for my daughter's sanitary napkin.

I'm sure there are so many other horror stories we encounter in stores here that one could write a Book of Warnings someday. Our friend Ana tells us that she was buying some bottles of C2 from a gas station store, and she was also being charged a price based on their computer that was different from what was on the tag. Since she is with the Province's Consumer Advocates Inc., she tried to stand her ground, but at the same time, felt bad why it was the customer who had to feel embarrassed about fighting for a few centavos.

Thankfully, there's Dr. Angeline Gonzalez of the Department of Trade and Industry's Regulatory Trade Division. She willingly attended to us, even beyond office hours, by promising to call the attention of the supermarket.

I still don't know if things have improved in that store since then. But I hope they didn't get away with just a slap on the wrist.*

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