The old saying “where there’s smoke, there is fire” is evident in the ongoing war between a multi-national cigarette manufacturing company and a local brand that has gained a sizable share of the market.
Philip Morris, Inc. has harnessed it full resources to mount a demolition job against rising star Mighty Cigarettes Corp. as shown by the PR blitz of PMI in major newspapers. Note the news report that the owners of Mighty were behind the passage of House Bill 4144 proposing a twotier tax on cigarettes sold locally. PMI, no doubt, knows the Philippines is a big market for their high-end, highly priced products. With health-conscious smokers in the United States and Europe, PMI turned its attention to Asia, a most lucrative area for cigarettes because the health warnings on the danger of smoking are not heeded as much as in the developed countries. To get a bigger foot in the door, PMI signed a merger with taipan Lucio Tan’s Fortune Tobacco.
Then came the hatchet report that the Bureau of Customs was going to slap a tax-smuggling case against Mighty. There is no truth to the report, BOC itself denied. Mighty Corp. Executive Vice President and spokesman, retired judge Oscar P. Barrientos, said in a statement that “there is no pending case with any government agency nor a notice of investigation by the Bureau of Customs following the inaccurate report the Filipino-owned company will be suspended for smuggling.”
How in the world then did the smuggling story pass the editors’ scrutiny of that major daily? Judge Barrientos said the scurrilous story is libelous and the company is studying its legal options against the reporter and the newspaper. Barrientos also made clear Mighty Corp. has long been out of the cigarette importation business since it was making more money in the domestic market. In fact, Mighty Corp. is considering making an initial public offering, confident there will be a lot of takers.
Philip Morris tobacco has a long history of craving to capture and monopolize the Asian market to offset the loss of market share in the US and Europe. In Indonesia, PMI tried to take over the company that manufactures the popular brand Krateka but failed. There were also overtures to buy Mighty and seal a monopoly of the Philippine cigarette market. The owners of Mighty who had built their brand after 72 years declined PMI’s offer. So this is a case of if you can’t buy them, destroy their strategy.
Mighty is fighting back, not only for its own survival, but also for the thousands of tobacco farmers in the Ilocos from whom it sources leaves for its products, If PMI takes over the huge Philippine market, the local tobacco growers will lose their livelihood as Philip Morris will be importing their own material from the tobacco-growing states in America. This was why the House, particularly congressmen from the country’s tobacco-producing provinces, passed House Bill 4144 calling for a two- tier tax system on cigarettes sold here.
PMI may not realize it but a unitary tax on cigarettes might just turn off smokers against their more expensive brand. Because it would mean higher tax for the Philip Morris brand, the prices on their brand will have to be passed on to consumers. Thanks to PMI, a boycott of Philip Morris is not a remote possibility with more smokers switching to the low-priced but quality Mighty brand.
With a two-tier tax system on cigarettes, smokers can still enjoy a good smoke at less price with the Mighty brands. There is much to be said about the multinational Philip Morris which repatriates revenues to the mother company in the US while the local Mighty Corp. sets aside a sizable chunk of its profits into its corporate social responsibility. Its community projects include church renovation and delivery of relief goods during calamities like typhoons and earthquakes.
Writing ‘30’
In the journalism profession, writing “30” at the end of a reporter’s news story means nothing follows. It also means the sad story of a journalist passing away. The strange and eccentric symbol has several versions of its beginnings. Of several versions, the one most plausible is that during the days before the advent of technological advance such as the laptop, desk top and wifi, stories were sent by reporters to their offices via teletype. The teletype operator would then type XXX at the end of the dispatch to say nothing follows. Since XXX in the Roman numeral means 30, editors and reporters picked up the teletype operator’s symbol to connote end of story. It then evolved into “30” and sometimes spelled out as “endit.”
Coincidentally, the Manila Standard this week observed its 30th anniversary. This major daily is not writing “30” but marking its 30th year of publication. Now, this is a milestone given that newspaper readership in this country and elsewhere in the world is declining. Hence we often hear of newspapers closing down or merging to share a big city’s readership. This declining newspaper readership can be blamed on the Internet and social media which contains the news plus other feature stories on health, etc.
That the Standard, which the late Rod Reyes founded with me as its first editor, flourished and continued publication to this day is a tribute to the businessmen owners who kept faith with the Standard’s potential. From businessmen Manda Elizalde to Alfonso Yuchengco, Andy Soriano, Ricky Razon and to its present owners Philip and Martin Romualdez, the Standard has gained a fair share of the market..
The Standard’s opinion page is its strong suit with its array of hard-hitting columnists whose views sometimes even clash with each other’s. This is as it should be.
When Rod Reyes and I launched the Standard on Feb. 11, 1987, quite frankly we didn’t think it would last and survive this long. That it did after more than a quarter of a century is a tribute to the men and women behind it. These are former editors, Jullie Yap Daza; Jojo Robles; managing editor Mon Tomeldan, chief photographer Bobby Cabrera and IT chief of technical services, Feriel Agustines.