EDITORIAL - Lamps mess defies definition

The act of overpricing is a common means of trying to make a little on the side. It may range from the seemingly innocuous, as in rounding off an amount to the nearest bigger whole figure, to the grossly opportunistic, as in doubling the actual amount.

Within that context, overpricing, in that it commonly applies to both public and private sectors, is considered acceptable. Or if acceptable is too liberal a word to use, then at least tolerable.

But when overpricing involves not just a doubling of amounts but a tripling, or even quadrupling of the already quadrupled, as in the Asean lamps controversy, then even the word overpricing in fact becomes even too tame a word to use.

Indeed, wordsmiths are at a loss to find a word that could aptly describe the act of charging P350,000 for a single lamppost that actually fetches only P20,000. Some are suggesting rip-off. Nah. Rob blind. Nah.

The fact is, the act was so gross and scandalous it cannot be encompassed in meaning and conveyed by emphasis in words of the English language that are designed for everyday in civilized conversation.

Thus, for lack of a better word, the nearest thing that comes to mind in order to make people understand is the word overpricing, never mind if it falls way, way short of being an apt description.

As to those now caught up in the mess, had they chosen to stay within the context of how overpricing is generally understood across all societies, not just in the Philippines, maybe the controversy would not have happened.

But because the act overshot all known norms and standard parameters of what had heretofore been widely understood as overpricing, people got so scandalized there was no way anyone could have pretended to see nothing unusual as to turn the other cheek.