Public warned on Christmas lights with no quality marks

CEBU - The Department of Trade and Industry Central-7 has warned the public not to buy Christmas lights with no Import Commodity Clearance (ICC) and Product Standard (PS) quality marks.

ICC is issued to importers of commodities which have been found to comply with Philippine product standards. Its marks can be found on imported products sold in the local market.

The PS quality mark, on the other hand, is granted to locally manufactured products that have consistently conform to the quality and safety requirements of the Philippines National Standards or to the international standards.

DTI said that since Christmas is fast approaching, the public is now starting to decorate their homes with stuffs that complement the occasion. Its first tip to the public is to be conscious in buying possible defective Christmas lights.

DTI-7 Senior Trade and Industry and Development Specialist Nifracia Abatayo said the DTI observed that most reported cases of fire accidents during Christmas season were traceable to Christmas lights failure.

Abatayo said that Christmas lights with no ICC or PS marks are considered to have not passed the standard requirement on quality and safety.

She said they may possibly be defective and may easily cause electric trouble to the user. She said usually, defective products have short life span since some are not anymore functional after one or few uses.

Abatayo said that Christmas lights with no ICC or PS marks may possibly be products that have failed to comply with the standard requirements and forced to be sold in the market, or those that were smuggled.

She, however said that smuggled products are not necessarily defective as they “may actually be of better quality, but it is not advisable because we are not sure if it has passed the standards set the country where it were manufactured.”

Abatayo said the smuggling of Christmas products is robbing the country of “revenue because these products are not giving right taxes.”

Last year, Abatayo said, DTI has confiscated hundreds of boxes of Christmas lights with no ICC or PS marks. Right now, they have started their monitoring and so far have not found any illegal products.

Abatayo said the public should always follow the right way to use the Christmas lights to avoid fire accidents.

She said Christmas lights should be switched off and unplugged during daytime to save on energy and avoid overuse. She advised the public to avoid using octopus outlets which may cause overloading of the circuit. — Jessica Ann R. Pareja/LPM (THE FREEMAN)