NO apology is enough for the deaths—not to mention the inconvenience to millions—caused by a faulty mechanism in the products of the world’s top-quality carmaker. When scandal hit corporate America, heads rolled in the boardroom.

Last week, Toyota’s chief quality assurance officer apologized to the public in the Japanese tradition of a deep bow. Contrast this with the elusiveness of the carmaker’s president, a grandson of the company’s founder.

This is disturbing for a company that said you should do it right the first time. Is this the new Toyota way? We hope not.

In the Philippines, the statement issued by the Japanese carmaker’s unit—that locally assembled vehicles were unaffected by the recall—leaves much to be desired.

For a company that spends millions in ads to peddle its cars—not to mention thousands to fly and billet journalists every so often in Japan—it is worrisome that the press had to draw out the carmaker’s response to its parent firm’s global recall.

Was this doing things right the first time?

As of last weekend, the recall threatened to widen to include Toyota’s car of the future, the hybrid Prius, which the automaker launched in the Philippines last year.

None of the locally available cars that are subject to the recall are made here, as Toyota Motor Philippines assembles only the Vios and Innova models.

Owners of the recalled models therefore are left to wonder if their cars also suffer from the same malfunctioning parts or mechanism.

Toyota popularized not only quality, but also lean production and just-in-time manufacturing.

These are premised on shedding inventory at factories but keeping them on hand through a network of suppliers around the world.

The Philippine operations, for example, produce not only specific car models, but also certain parts used elsewhere in Toyota’s global production network.

Given the growing number of models subject to the recall, we are unsure if the same faulty mechanism has found its way not only into the units imported into the Philippines, but also into the vehicles assembled in the country.

Toyota Philippines has to do more than just give the public empty assurances. It has to say where exactly it gets the auto parts used in cars sold in the country, particularly those parts that were responsible for the recall.

But accountability also lay elsewhere, as the public obviously cannot rely on a company’s say-so, especially when a lot is at stake. This is where the government comes in.

In the US, Americans have a strong consumer-protection agency that has not let up in making Toyota accountable to its publics.

Unfortunately, we cannot say the same about the Philippines’ Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), whose Consumer Welfare Group has opted to keep silent about Toyota’s recall.

Could it be because the DTI is a captured regulator beholden to foreign businessmen who helped the agency meet its investment targets? Toyota after all is one of the biggest investors registered with another DTI agency, the Board of Investments (BOI).

But it is precisely Toyota’s registration with the BOI that should compel the company to be more transparent.

BOI-registered firms enjoy fiscal incentives, which are nothing but subsidies paid for by the public at large—be they Toyota car owners or not.

Seen from this angel, the public definitely deserves more than just an apology.