OMB beefs up campaign in provinces

The Optical Media Board (OMB) has intensified its provincial campaign against counterfeit optical media products, which its chairman, Eduardo Manzano, said are being smuggled particularly through the southern part of the country.

The OMB cited verified intelligence reports that this unlawful trade is being used to further and finance terrorist activities.

It has been internationally noted, according to the OMB, that the business of counterfeit optical media products is more profitable – and less risky – than drug trafficking, owing to lesser penalties and sentences subject to suspended implementation.

Of late, the OMB has discovered that sachets of shabu or its derivatives were stashed inside counterfeit optical media products.

Also, during one of its enforcement operations, the OMB found 265 live M-16 bullets and two live grenades in the same box containing counterfeit optical media products.

What is also alarming, Manzano said, is the agency’s discovery that producers of counterfeit optical media products containing child pornography are victimizing out-of-school children in the Visayas and Mindanao by luring them into engaging in sexual activities while being filmed in exchange for money.

The OMB discovered a child pornographic material involving a three-year-old girl which, based on the scenic background, is suspected to have been filmed in one of the beaches in the south.

“Our much-treasured children and picturesque natural resources are being desecrated by these criminals,” Manzano said.

Last July 25, Manzano ordered a continuous crackdown on vendors of counterfeit optical media products in Cebu City. So far, the OMB has seized 690 sacks of these products.

“This is a continuing operation and we will sustain this until the sale of counterfeit optical media products containing child pornographic materials is totally eradicated,” he said.