Tama si Ericp. The formulation is basically the same. So just go for Hapee. That way, we don't have to pay importation tax and keep money within the economy. Most of the global brands are now manufactured either in Thailand or Indonesia because of the Asea complementation scheme.

In the mid 80s, there was really one good brand in the market. This was Proof which was also manufactured by Colgate Palmolive. It was supposed to be a secondary brand to Colgate. A little bit cheaper with no frills. But it started eating into Colgate Palmolive's market share so the company decided to drop it. A bad move!

Another bad move of CP came in 1987. At that time, aluminum tubing was getting to be expensive. During the annual budget review, corporate office asked the local company whether it should invest on laminate tube machines. The local company, based on their market intelligence, declared that laminate tubes won't be in the local market for the next three years. Because of the investment cost, they decided to stay with aluminum tubes. And to top it off, they speculated by importing several millions of aluminum tubes. The importer of these tubes then was Lamoiyan Corporation.

Unknown to CP, however, during that time PRC (now Unilever), already had 3 laminate tube filling machines operating full time at a warehouse in Pasig, producing Pepsodent.

Paglabas ng Pepsodent, nabigla ang CP. Then Pepsodent started eating up Colgate's share in the market. Nag panic ang CP. They had to immediately invest on laminate tube machines. But the move was too late. They could not win back what they lost. As a result of this, the GM and several marketing executives and managers were sacked.

And then they made another major mistake sila. Saddled with several million pesos worth of aluminum tubes, they had two options. Sell these to some little known developing country or just sell this to the importer. Both would result to substantial losses but selling to another country would take longer and would result to greater loss because of freight charges. So they sold it to Lamoiyan.

Lamoiyan had no choice but to take back the aluminum tubes. They could not refuse CP. If they would go for litigation to settle the issue, it would be a battle between David and Goliath. Lamoiyan then had two options, sell the tubes to a third country, thus absorbing part of the losses that should have gone to CP. Or just use the tube themselves. And so, Hapee toothpaste was born. And the rest, they say, is history!

As the retirees put it, "Na karma ang CP!"