No Suit Yet Vs. Calugay, Fake Ciggie Makers – BIR Nat’l

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

QUEZON CITY – “Wala pa pina file na criminal case (no criminal case has been filed),” declared last Tuesday by a national top brass of the Bureau of Internal Revenue here to the query of this writer if he filed a suit at the Regional Trial Court in Lingayen, Pangasinan to those counterfeiters of cigarettes and tax stamps.

BIR Deputy Commissioner for Operation Arnel Guballa explained that the non-filing of the criminal cases against Sual mayoral candidate  Liseldo “Dong” Calugay, five Chinese nationals, John Does, and more than a dozen workers of CL Factory in Barangay Portic, Bugallon, Pangasinan have been pending because he is still waiting for the action of the National Bureau of Investigation.

Deputy Commissioner Arnel Guballa of the Bureau of Internal Revenue being interviewed by the author at his office in Quezon City.

Calugay was the target of the Mission Order Guballa signed that ordered the joint task force of the BIR and the NBI to raid it in November last year.

They swoop down on a factory in Bugallon that manufactured fake products of Marlboro, Winston, Marvel, Mighty, Winsboro, Fortune, and Camel.

The bogus factory was expose after a long and delicate surveillance by personnel of Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corp. (PMFTC) who found out the proliferation of fake Marlboro products being peddled in some towns in the province. 
They tipped off the BIR on the locations of a tobacco warehouse in Mangaldan, Pangasinan and the factory in Bugallon.   

The factory disguised as a huge piggery but with state of the art's cigarette machineries churned countless cigarette sticks, boxes, and others where the tobacco products were affixed with spurious brand labels and fake tax stamps when the joint strike team raided it at dusk of November 28, 2018.
Officials there estimated those paraphernalia and fake tobacco brands to be worth two billion pesos.

“Hindi rin kami nag release ng press releases kasi its because lahat ng operations namin joint iyan kasi seizable iyan ng BIR. Pero actually kung minsan pag counterfeit NBI,” he stressed in Filipino.

When asked if PMTC and other producers have filed  criminal cases of forgery, those offenses in Intellectual Property Code, Trade Mark, and other laws, Guballa said he was not privy because he is not the head of the strike team.

“Even the other media outlets sabi ko I am still waiting for the result of the report of our team. Hindi ako ang overall,”.

He said that the bogus factory in Pangasinan was not the biggest counterfeiter of the tobacco brands and fake BIR stamps because there were much bigger factories they raided in Mindanao and Visayas.

“Hindi naman, sa Mindanao dami niyan! Sa Bisaya”.

Violation of stamps in the National Internal Revenue Code metes a fine of not less than P20,000 but not more than P50,000 and an imprisonment of less than four years and but not more than eight years.

Unlike with those criminal and special law cases to be filed by the legitimate manufacturers, Guballa agreed with this writer that the punishment of stamp law is lighter for the offenders.

Recently, Department of Finance Carlos Dominguez III got the cooperation of  Department of Interior & Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año when he asked the BIR to request the DILG to file administrative and criminal charges against local government officials who were in cahoots giving permits and protection with those clandestine and fake cigarette makers.

“The officials, employees who were instrumental in the issuance of the permit and all other accountable persons who failed to exercise the degree of diligence required of them should be investigated and subsequently subjected to appropriate charges,” Dominguez told Año as quoted by the Inquirer.

Dominguez, in a meeting at the DOF, singled out the factory in Bugallon, Pangasinan

READ:

Lawmaker denies he reported fake ciggie factory