CONSUMER PROTECTION ADVOCACY

(An Alumni Outreach Project)

The Community Outreach Committee within the Board of Directors of HNU Alumni Association, Inc. has started the ground works for the formal organization of a body that will help consumers protect themselves from fraudulent transactions, defective products, deceptive, unfair and unsatisfactory practices in the marketplace. The group has been meeting for the past months to discuss the merits of this advocacy whether this will impact the lives of the people in the community. The members contend that, since all of us are consumers, we will be able to benefit from this endeavor.

Atty. Raul Barbarona, chairman of the committee, has arranged for Atty. Rene Paredes, Chairman of the HNU Law Center, to attend the Board meeting on June 20, 2008 in order to be able to present the framework of the consumer protection project with the goal of making said Law Center to commit its resources and collaborate with the HNU Alumni Association in support of this advocacy. It is anticipated that there will be problems in the future that need legal services, thus, the importance of this meeting held at the HNU Alumni Center.

The committee has realized the value of empowering the consumers by giving them ample information as to their rights and obligations as well as knowing where to go in search for redress. Since HNU is an educational institution, the committee hopes, among other things, to be able to convince the academic community to include Consumer Protection as part of the curriculum as early as the elementary and high school.

Helping Atty. Barbarona in the Community Outreach Committee are Neneng L. Corales, Gloria Araneta and Eurie Gutierrez. Even if the Consumer Body has not been formally launched yet, the HNU Alumni Board of Directors participated in the public hearing conducted by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) regarding the petition of Bohol Light Company Inc. to pass on to the electric consumers here in Tagbilaran the franchise taxes that it paid to the BIR and the city government for the past five (5) years with the intention of recovering them. So, if approved, this will undoubtedly raise the electric bill of each and every electric consumer here in Tagbilaran. The Board led by VP for Internal Affairs, Raul Barbarona, vehemently opposes this and stayed all throughout the proceedings that lasted the whole morning at the Governor’s Mansion.