Government seizes P3.1 billion worth of fake goods in 8 months

MANILA, Philippines - The government has vowed to seize a record-breaking number of pirated items this year after confiscating P3.1 billion worth of fake goods in the first eight months.

In an interview with reporters, IP Philippines director general Ricardo Blancaflor said even with the closure of known pirated DVD hub Quiapo, the government was still able to seize P3.1 billion worth of goods from January to August.

“The figure does not count Quiapo. The major hub was closed down. We seized P20 million worth of DVDs in two months but now it is completely dry,” Blancaflor said.

For this year, he said their intensified anti-piracy drive would result in them overtaking the all-time high of P5.7 billion worth of goods confiscated in 2001. Last year, the amount of seized counterfiet items stand at P5.4 billion.

Majority of the seized items were watches, followed by bags and apparel. Because of the closure of the Quiapo operations, the top seizing agency is now the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), operations, the followed by the Bureau of Customs and the Optical Media Board.

Blancaflor said the cities of Caloocan and Mandaluyong are now coordinating with them in order to see how they can duplicate the example of Quiapo.

Meanwhile, Blancaflor reported that the brands that cooperated with them like Louis Vuitton are no longer being sold openly in Greenhills. The fake LVs, Blancaflor said, are no longer prominently displayed in the tiangges of Greenhills Shopping Center. In fact, the international brand has told Blancaflor that they estimate a 60 percent drop in fake LV sales this year compared to 2010.

Blancaflor said that reports to him reflect that most of the pirated items in Metro Manila come from China. However, he said they are now closely monitoring Zamboanga because of reports that it is being used as a backdoor entry for counterfeit goods from Malaysia.

Likewise, to help in the drive versus piracy, Blancaflor said they will hold an enforcement summit next month.