ROUGH CUTS | ‘Caveat emptor’, ‘caveat venditor’

THERE is no denying the fact that big businesses in the world, those in the Philippines included, have dominating influence on consumers to patronize whatever products they introduce in the market.
Recent trends however show that in the past two or three decades consumers have somehow awakened from their stupor and slowly realized that they need to be wary of the products they are enticed to buy as a result of massive advertisements aimed at winning their patronage.
The push for the sale of the products carried by various businesses through ads in all media vehicles aims only at one thing: to ensure that the products get into the consumers’ consciousness making them more gullible in accepting the products as the best that they can get in the market.
Thus, in the last many decades, the businesses managed to escape from the responsibility of getting accountable for the quality of the merchandise already in the hands of consumers after closing the sale. This is largely because the big businesses wield more power than the individual consumers. This huge influence even leads many governments to fail in providing for an effective system of handling consumer complaints.
Shortly before the turn of the century however, the emerging consumer movement started applying social organizing principles to cushion, if not totally apply a full brake from the outside on the growing business influence in ensuring marketability of their products. That kind of economic climate that is clearly biased in favor of the goods producers is actually the one reason of the rise of that traditional marketing adage which says caveat emptor which means giving the consumers the responsibility of determining the quality of the products they are buying (let the buyer beware).
The recognition though of the growing consumer activism however, is giving rise to the gradual replacement of the dictum with a new one, caveat venditor or let the seller beware.
We are quite desirous in having these two marketing adages applied on the ongoing campaign of candidates in both national and local elections. After all, the similarity is obvious. The candidates are actually marketing their products which is their personal selves to the consumers (the voters) for acceptance using their self-supplied qualifications, character, promises and whatever as enticements to convince the public to vote for them or accept them as the best product available in the Filipino market..
If our candidates are supposed to be the products offered for market patronage, then it is worth looking into the applicability of the adage caveat emptor. The consumers – the voters – assume responsibility in determining if indeed the products (candidates) are the best choice that they can ever have. That is, if they made a mistake in their choice there can be no other people to blame but they alone. They have not been wary and are wanting in scrutiny of their chosen products (candidates)
Unfortunately for candidates, their marketing of themselves is not anymore assured that the consumers (voters) have no way of getting back at them. That is, applying the latter adage of caveat venditor or candidates marketing or selling themselves must now be the ones who should beware.
Candidates now have to recognize the rising educational level of the voters (consumers), the widening influence of media, both mainstream and the alternative ones, have contributed to the their increased awareness; their knowledge as well as their expectations from those who offered to serve them and the country.
The voters (consumers if we wish) are now becoming more responsive to calls for political initiatives to protect their rights to demand the kind of government they want.
So, let this new emerging adage be a serious warning to the candidates especially to those running or marketing their persons to be voted or accepted as leaders of the national government. They should moderate their lies and show humility instead. They must be aware that nowadays the Filipino people may not anymore be fooled twice or the most thrice; that they now have a way of exacting their sweet revenge to those who have or are attempting to offer them far from quality products or services – the fake persons in them.
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After our column item divulging the names of top political personalities in the third district who can easily be “kadangpan” or can easily be approached for assistance as shown in a survey a group conducted, we ended up being paid a visit by someone from a remote sitio in Tugbok District. Our visitor claimed that he was one of the beneficiaries of the assistance given by candidate Carmelo “Bebot” Clarion, the leading political personality included in the survey.
The guy who requested us not to mention his name, said that indeed he was confined at the SPMC for over a month and that his little income from his small farm was already far from enough to sustain his long confinement. He told us that his family has already approached several politicians, relatives and even friends. And it could only get so less that the assistance is not even enough to buy food for those left in the house.
Until, he said, his wife had to make her face even thicker if only to look for someone who could bridge her to Clarion who is from Toril, a good 30 kilometers from his residence in Tugbok.
He cried unabashedly in front of us saying that Clarion asked his wife to present to him his medical prescriptions, her husband’s accumulated hospital bills and the like.
From then on, it was Clarion’s trusted assistant, a Mrs. Mosqueda, who on Clarion’s instructions, worked out with the Lingap and with the office of Congressman Polong Duterte to get the needed support. It relieved his family of the hassles finding means to satisfy his medicine needs.
Now, the patient proudly says, that if he is allowed to vote many time over, he’ll vote for Third District council candidate Clarion as many as is allowed.
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