FALSE ECONOMY

Imagine this: after years of mustering up the courage, you’ve finally decided to try skydiving so you begin searching for the best school to take you on your aerial adventure. One establishment that you come across offers the lowest rates and advertises itself as the most budget-friendly and affordable skydiving school.

Or say you’ve given up on trying to lose those bulges through diet and exercise and so you search the Net for clinics and doctors that offer to do liposuction. One is well known for being the aesthetic doctor to the biggest movie and TV stars, has a reputation for doing a good job making people better shaped, but charges much, much more than an obscure clinic that offers to do liposuction at one fourth the price.

While being financially prudent and budget-conscious is a commendable trait, there are some decisions where cost considerations must take a backseat. When your life is literally on the line, it’s not the time to pinch pennies.

Sadly, we see far more subtle examples of this in the lives of everyday Filipinos. There are countless instances of people who scrimp on home wiring and electrical systems, those who purchase reconditioned fire extinguishers and safety devices, those who think that getting insurance coverage on one’s health and property is a waste of money and then find out later that had they spent a little more, then they would have shelled out much less in the long run.

This is what is referred to as false economy, which refers to an action that saves money at the beginning but, over a longer period of time, results in more money being wasted than being saved.

One article revealed that a notable practitioner of false economy was King Frederick William I of Prussia, who was said to have saved five or six dollars a year feeding his family unwholesome cabbages even though the poor diet sickened his children and the resulting medical care costs him many times what he saved.

It is understandable why people want to save money, especially in these difficult times. But just because it is cheap doesn’t mean that it is always good for you.

A cheap internet plan for instance may mean unreliable or poor internet connection. A cheap mobile phone would definitely not last long. Even government contracts are not awarded by choosing the winning bidder solely on the basis of price.

The most common offshoot of having a false sense of economy is a warped scale of spending priorities. This is what leads students to eat nothing but crackers for weeks in order to buy the latest flagship mobile phone, or employees to walk long distances to save money for their daily cup of branded signature coffee.

A friend recently visited some relatives in Cebu last week and she said that they were bemoaning how this was in full display in their province during the height of the summer months. For decades, the local residents have been fully aware that their area’s sustainable water supply was precarious at best. A rotating list of local government leaders, private sector contributors, committees, and various experts had  already come up with various suggestions to address the problem (some more viable than others), yet decisive, large-scale investments in these solutions were never undertaken.

Can anyone guess the main reason why new infrastructure and technologies were not pursued? It’s because citizens would be up in arms whenever the additional costs involved in these solutions would be discussed. In other words, people would rather choose to face the risk of a major water crisis (we are talking not only a supply shortage but also health and sanitation issues) than spend a few pesos more for a reliable water supply.

Then came the oppressively hot months of March, April and May this year, which further dried up the dams, reservoirs and rivers throughout the province. A water crisis was declared by the capital city’s local government unit, with several communities experiencing zero water for weeks on end.

Faced with dry taps, residents were now forced to buy water from whatever source they could, mostly trucked-in water whose source, origin, or potability could not be determined.

On the low end of the spectrum – which, to no one’s surprise, was initially the most popular option – suppliers were charging as low as P10 for five gallons of (dubious) water. It was only a matter of time – again, to no one’s surprise when people started vomiting or suffering from diarrhea and other water-borne illnesses which became rampant in several areas. When this happened, many households decided to bite the bullet and have branded water delivered to their homes, paying as much as P95 for five gallons.

Given this new reality, one would presume that many of those who used to vehemently resist paying P90 for 1,000 liters suddenly had a moment of clarity and perspective.

Moreover, all throughout these challenging times, I can guarantee you that a lot of these opposers were still happily paying P249 per month for their Netflix subscriptions.

I don’t know about you, but it certainly boggles my mind how people can be so gracious about unnecessary subscriptions while being so tight-fisted about paying for clean and  reliable water.

Then again, it is said that a moment of crisis serves as the best eye-opener. Hopefully, the water crisis that they just went through will finally allow these Cebu-based consumers to reevaluate their priorities.

   

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2024-07-05T16:43:07Z dg43tfdfdgfd