By Annabel Consuelo Petinglay/Philippine News Agency
SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique — The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in Antique has intensified its monitoring of school supplies due to heavy demand for the school opening on June 3.
Engineer Lynna Joy Cardinal, DTI Antique information officer, said in an interview Tuesday that starting Wednesday, there will be daily monitoring of retail stores selling school supplies.
“We are distributing today the new Suggested Retail Price (SRP) for the school supplies so that by tomorrow we could already start the monitoring,” she said.
She said that the new SRP as of May 25, which will be the basis for their intensified monitoring, only showed meager differences ranging from 90 centavos to PHP11 as compared with the May 15 SRP.
“A spiral notebook that costs PHP14.30 in the last May 15 SRP now costs PHP15.20,” Cardinal said.
She said that the Color crayon jumbo number 8 that previously costs PHP39 per box is now at PHP50.
Other items being monitored are writing pad papers for Grade 1 to 4, pencil, ballpen, and sharpeners.
Cardinal said that among the reasons that cause the increase in prices of school supplies are the rise in labor costs, imported paper, and closure of paper mills in China.
Meanwhile, Cardinal said that there are 15 retail stores that confirmed participation in their in-store “Balik Eskwela Diskwento” being annually held before the school opening to help students and their parents get discounts on school supplies.
“We encourage more retail stores to join in the Balik Eskwela Diskwento to be held from May 31 to June 4,” she said.
She added the participating retailers will put up tarpaulins in front of their stores for consumers to know they are offering discounts.
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