MANILA, Philippines - Two businesswomen in Quezon City were arrested yesterday by agents of the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG) for allegedly manufacturing fake shampoo, with poor families as their workers.
PASG officer-in-charge Danilo Mangila said 15 agents, acting on a tip, raided a row of shanties in Barangay Sandakot, Payatas at around 9 a.m. and caught members of a family filling used shampoo bottles of different brands with a white liquid that could pass as shampoo.
Agents seized 229 empty and filled shampoo bottles of brands Clear, Sunsilk, Palmolive, Head and Shoulders, Pantene, and Rejoice as well as pails of sodium laureth sulfate, a shampoo ingredient; bags of starch and iodized salt; and bottles of cheap scents.
Mangila said the family of three pointed to Niceta Bumolo of Karopal Gen. Merchandise and Luz Fernandez of L.A.F Balloons, Chairs, and Tables For Rent, both from Barangay Commonwealth in Quezon City as their employers.
He said the family would most likely be let off as they were so poor and they claimed they did not know what they were doing was illegal.
Bumolo and Fernandez were arrested at their shops yesterday.
“They (Bumolo and Fernandez) would be charged for violation of provisions of the Intellectual Property Rights law and the Consumer Act,” Mangila told a news briefing at the Palace.
PASG Director Jeffrey Patawaran, who led the raid, said they are validating reports that families in other shanties in Payatas as well as other parts of Metro Manila were being used as cheap labor for the scheme. Mangila said there were also similar reports of the scheme in Cebu.
Patawaran said the businesswomen buy the empty bottles from junk shops and even dump sites and have them cleaned.
“So the garbage segregation and recycling they’re doing is for a different purpose and the families say this is their livelihood,” Mangila said.
Patawaran said iodized salt, starch, sodium laureth sulfate and scent are mixed together in a bucket and then poured into the recycled bottles, stopping just before the bottle is full.
The remaining space is filled with the real shampoo taken from sachets, so when the buyer opens the bottle, she or he smells the real thing, Patawaran said.
He said these fake shampoos are sold at market stalls or offered door to door by decently dressed vendors.
Mangila said lawyers of the manufacturers of various shampoo brands have already coordinated with them for the filing of charges.