Philippine legislators are now engaged in product-endorsing advertisements. Who will now protect the public? Why not these legislators get their much-desired publicity by looking into the false and misleading advertisements instead?

When legislators begin endorsing products in the form of public advertisements, who would protect the consumers?

The issue of Philippine legislators endorsing products has generated various reactions from the public as well as even other legislators themselves.

Of course you cannot expect those involved in product endorsed to claim that their deeds are illegal and of course, they are not. But are they moral?

Should our amply-paid legislators go to such debasing acts?

With not a few lawmakers engaged in the practice, how can the public be assured that they can be protected against false or misleading advertisements? Is it not prudent for our legislators to look into this scenario before it happens?

Surely it is not just one case wherein the public is exposed to false advertisements. At the height of the rice crisis, we had several cases of NFA rice repacked and sold as commercial rice at commercial price. We have the issue of LPG tanks falling short of the actual weight as advertised paid at advertised prices. We had the issue of chalks being mixed with soaps.

Then we had the issue of glutathione falling short of the advertised content. We also had persistent though unconfirmed rumors and complaints of cell phone loads vanishing. My experienced is about a certain smart gadget claimed to connect to the internet every time everywhere at high speed charged for every time-block. Constant monitored usage revealed that every time I used the gadget is that I am always short of the time-block allotted as advertised and I am disconnected.

There are really unscrupulous businesses or businessmen that are putting profits their only aim and will go to the extent of achieving it no matter how dishonest and immoral the process is. Cited above are just few examples.

That is why the government is trying to protect the public against these ruthless elements preying on unsuspecting and helpless consumers.

But with legislators joining in the fray of endorsing products or services, will these legislators be able to summon and investigate these entities should one day the products they are endorsing might fall short of their advertised benefits? Is it not prudent to inhibit ones self from this before this will happen?

With the rate with which these false and misleading advertisements are coming, it would be more beneficial to the public if these legislators would devote their time to look into this issue. Of course there is no extra pay but as their detractors would say, they are not after the pay but for the publicity that comes with product endorsement. So, why not these product-endorsing, amply-paid legislators go after these false and misleading advertisers. In such a way, they can get the much-needed publicity they wanted and serve the public at the same time.