Across the country, authorities have been intercepting large volumes of unregistered cigarettes, raising questions on who might be behind what must be lucrative operations, and why the brains can’t be caught.
Last February following the discovery of three abandoned illegal factories in Pampanga containing a combined P1.2 billion worth of illegal cigarettes, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla said there appeared to be a “tobacco lord” based in the province, backed by two lawmakers. He did not identify the “persons of interest.”
Now it looks like there are also “tobacco cops.”
The Philippine National Police has sacked 13 members of its Highway Patrol Group-National Capital Region for reportedly preventing at gunpoint Bureau of Customs personnel from destroying smuggled cigarettes at an incineration plant in Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
Col. Joey Tomas Caise was sacked as HPG-NCR chief and reassigned to the human resources management and doctrine development division at Camp Crame.
Caise’s 12 subordinates led by Lt. Col. Carlo Carreon Lonosa were transferred to the administrative holding unit, on “floating” status, pending the investigation of the encounter.
The 13 claimed they had raided the wrong facility. Remulla said the PNP is verifying reports that the 13 had tried to retrieve the cigarettes at the behest of a Luzon-based politician who owned the contraband.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government had launched an intensified crackdown on illegal cigarettes at the start of the year. On Jan. 29, a raid on a factory in Mexico, Pampanga led to the confiscation of millions of pesos worth of illicit cigarettes plus the equipment for their production.
This raid apparently led operators to abandon three other facilities that were raided two weeks later in San Fernando City, Mexico and San Simon in Pampanga. The raiders seized tobacco drying and cigarette manufacturing machines, a packing machine, raw materials, cigarette filters and suspected fake tax stamps.
Marikina Rep. Miro Quimbo has described the illicit cigarette trade as “the new POGO,” with foreigners behind the operations and employing abusive working conditions.
Apart from the manufacturers, authorities should go after the others in the supply chain – from the sources of the raw materials particularly the fake tax stamps, to the middlemen before the unregistered cigarettes reach retail outlets.
The DILG and PNP should also determine the extent of police involvement in the illicit cigarette trade, which undermines the local tobacco industry.
Like POGOs or Philippine offshore gaming operations, the lucrative illicit cigarette trade cannot thrive without protection from persons in authority. This HPG encounter with BOC personnel should lead to a wider probe.