It was bound to happen sooner rather than later, but nobody expected it to happen this soon.

An informal survey taken by The Manila Times revealed that the prices of “sin” products like cigarettes and alcoholic beverages have started to go up this last week of the year.

The price hikes have not been dramatic, to be sure. But there is no reason for retailers to jack up their prices when they are still selling their old stock. Perhaps they believe that no one will raise a howl over their move. Their logic goes thus: since the prices of these products will go up very soon anyway, why not increase them now? What difference will a few weeks or a couple of months make anyway?

To the poor consumer, it makes all the difference in the world. An employee earning minimum wage will feel the pinch of the new prices where it hurts most—his daily budget. What more the unemployed or the underemployed? Telling them to consume less sin products is no answer as they will continue to buy what they want just the same.

In the ubiquitous convenience stores spread all over Metro Manila, for example, the retail price of cigarettes have gone up by between eight and 10 percent, on the average. Other sin products have also gone up marginally, but this can be a sign of further increases in the near future.

Wholesalers and retailers may only be testing the waters for now to determine how much consumers are willing to shell out to satisfy their vices. Thus, a P1 increase over a bottle of gin, for instance, sets the stage for another P1 hike next week, and the week after that, and the week after that, ad infinitum. Only when their sales drop will the sellers determine that they have gone too far, and must roll back their prices.

This could well be the time for consumer advocates to speak up and hopefully prevent runaway increases in all the products affected by the sin tax law signed by President Benigno Aquino 3rd earlier this month.

The rich may easily afford the higher prices, while the middle class will only be irritated by the price hikes, but it is the poor who comprise the biggest chunk of the market who will have to pay more for their favorite products.