The fight continues

Government’s effort to confiscate fake and smuggled cigarettes and to arrest those behind producing, importing, and/or selling these products are finally taking fruit.

Just last April 15, newspapers reported that police arrested a third suspect at a public market in Guiguinto, Bulacan selling fake and smuggling cigarettes, not far from where the two other suspects were earlier apprehended by operatives of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

The PNP-CIDG Bulacan caught a woman red-handed selling fake Mighty Corp. cigarettes at the public market. The woman was charged with violating the Intellectual Property Code.

According to CIDG Chief Police Director Victor Deona, fake tobacco products pose a serious threat to consumers and the economy because they are not tax-paid.

He said that aside from the IP Code, those caught could also be held for violating the Consumer Protection Act and the National Internal Revenue Code.

Earlier, NBI agents arrested two male suspects selling counterfeit Mighty products at a sari-sari store in Bocaue, Bulacan on a complaint filed by Mighty Corp. Not only was the cigarette quality different, the package had misspelled words and lacked an obscure manufacturing code.

In Sta. Cruz, Manila, counterfeit Mighty cigarettes were seized last month by authorities inside a warehouse, following a nationwide campaign initiated by MC, Bureau of Customs, PNP, BIR and the NBI.

Other media reports quoted government authorities as saying that smugglers were using the southern backdoor in Mindanao to bring in contraband and counterfeit cigarettes from China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Cambodia.

Police and customs authorities have reminded retailers and sari-sari stores to source their cigarette stocks only from official sales agents of government-registered tobacco companies with the proliferation of smuggled and fake cigarettes entering through the southern backdoor.

The illicit cigarettes are sold at very cheap prices, with each pack sold at P18-P20, which is not even equivalent to the excise tax due on cigarettes at P25 per pack.

Late last year, authorities seized and destroyed numerous caches, and prosecuted individuals engaged in the sale of illicit products in Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Nueva Ecija and Cebu.

The smuggled and fake cigarette brands have been identified as Marlboro, Winston, Mighty, Marvels, Far Star, Fort, American Legend, Union, Navy and Gudang Garam, manufactured in China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Cambodia.

The fact that the cigarettes are being sold at dirt-cheap prices should make one wonder what ingredients they put in the fake products. Not to mention that patronizing smuggled and fake products rob our tobacco farmers of income, and our government of taxes paid by legitimate cigarette manufacturers.

Air Safety

International Air Transport Association (IATA) director general and CEO Tony Tyler, in a recent speech at the IATA Ops Conference in Denmark, spoke about some very interesting facts and observations.

For instance, he mentioned that according to the 2015 IATA Safety Report, the global jet accident rate, which is measured in hull losses per one million flights, was 0.32, which was the equivalent of one major accident for every 3.1 million flights. This, he said, was a 30 percent improvement compared to the previous five-year rate of 0.46 hull losses per million jet flights.

Tyler noted the industry has worked hard to prevent any loss of life, it experienced four fatal hull loss accidents in 2015 - all involving turboprop aircraft – with a total of 136 fatalities. This compares positively with an average of 17.6 fatal accidents and 504 fatalities per year in the previous five-year period.

But he emphasized that two tragedies, the losses of Germanwings 9525 and Metrojet 9268, are not included in the totals, as they were deliberate events, not accidents. If you look at the last two years, the industry’s safety performance has been affected primarily by events that could be previously classified as almost “unthinkable,” Tyler remarked.

Another interesting point he raised is about emerging safety challenges.

Tyler said one example that is regularly in the news is drones, or as the International Civil Aviation Organization or ICAO refers to them, Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems.

He noted that while we are only beginning to discover the many potential commercial applications of this technology, and that it would be naive to think that states and military forces would reduce their use of drones, we must not allow them to become a drag on the efficiency of the airways or a safety threat to commercial aviation.

Tyler emphasized that while the great majority of drone operators pose no risk, still there is a need for a sensible approach to regulation and a pragmatic method of firm enforcement for those who disregard rules and regulations and put others in danger.

He said in the US, there is an FAA campaign known as “Know Before You Fly” to educate prospective users about the safe and responsible operation of drones.

But then, there is another threat, and that is the carriage of lithium batteries. Tyler noted that while a vast majority of shipments are in full compliance with appropriate aviation regulations, including the dangerous goods regulations (DGR) and IATA Lithium Battery Shipping Guidelines, with 400 million lithium batteries being produced each week, ICAO has acknowledged the risks of improperly manufactured batteries and placed a temporary ban on lithium battery shipments in the bellies of passenger aircraft.

He stressed that banning lithium batteries from air freight does not solve the issue of counterfeit or non-declared goods, even as he urged governments to redouble their efforts to enforce the regulations and close the loopholes that prevent prosecutions of serial offenders.

I wonder what our regulations are with respect to these two emerging threats, and whether or not our airport authorities and airline companies are complying with international standards.

Our government does not even have the slightest idea what to do with the worsening air traffic situation. Airplanes that go around in circles or have to go to Bulacan and back to Pasay because they could not get the go signal to land due to the NAIA runway traffic have become perennial sightings. Flight delay due to air traffic is becoming the rule rather than the exception.

NAIA-3’s generator sets do not work, causing a more than five-hour brownout last April 2 and cancellation and delay of so many flights.

And since these are factors beyond the control of airline companies, inconvenienced passengers are lucky if they are allowed to refund or rebook without penalty. What about the expenses they have to incur, say, from non-refundable prepaid hotel charges, or from having to take another route which requires additional expenses in terms of land or sea transport to bring them to their originally intended destination (I know of one who was bound for Boracay, but since her flight was cancelled and she had to go there for an important event, she and her friends took the Iloilo flight, and then had to take a bus ride for several hours to Boracay.) And then of course the physical exhaustion from lack of sleep, lack of food. Airline companies will not give you food or hotel accommodations if the cause of the delay or cancellation was not of their own doing.

All of sudden, lithium batteries and drones seem to be no longer that important, considering the myriad of problems Filipino air passengers face everyday. We have not even talked about collapsing floors and ceilings inside the airport, or missing balikbayan boxes, or non-working airport CCTV cameras, or the laglag-bala scam.

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