Special treatment or cigarette "smuggling"?

Things were being confiscated from media who covered the event with President DU30 earlier this week. Among those were cigarettes. Exactly why the Presidential Security Group was treating them as a hazard was uncertain.

What was certain was even though cigarettes were confiscated at the entrance to the event, members of the Manila media were eventually spotted smoking behind the area intended for the media. Earlier, one of them was seen talking about those cigarettes with a palace official who may or may not have helped get their cigarettes past security.