Philippines: Local Cigarette Firm Welcomes Probe

Source from:  Manila Standard Today (ph)  12/20/2013

Mighty Tobacco Corp., a maker of cheap local cigarettes, said Tuesday its corporate records have always been transparent and are open for scrutiny to anyone, including those in Congress.

"We welcome in particular the orders of the Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Internal Revenue to look into our records of shipments and taxes paid," Mighty    legal counsel Miguelito Ocampo said in a press statement.

"We are not hiding anything. Our operations, from sourcing of raw local and imported materials to manufacturing, withdrawals and marketing, are transparent and are strictly monitored and liquidated by the BoC and the BIR," Ocampo said.

"It would be fair though if the investigation is also done to other cigarette manufacturers, particularly the giant and powerful multinationals who are always complaining against our company," he said, adding a trust law should be initiated by Congress to protect Filipino producers.

Ocampo slammed the local company's critics for "dishing out malicious and damaging information to the media that not only tended to undermine the integrity of government tax authorities but also accused us of misdeclaration and illegal withdrawal…," he said.

He said cigarette consumers in the Philippines had shifted to the cheaper brands as an unexpected consequence of the implementation of the new tax law that bracketed premium and sub-premium cigarettes to higher prices and taxes like those produced by giant multinational companies.

"If we have increased our share of the market, it's not our fault and neither it means we're using fraud. Maybe they should look at the supply and demand side and adopt the right marketing strategy based on Republic Act 10351, or the new sin tax law," Ocampo said.

He said Mighty's detractors were resorting to machinations and intrigues, adding they were "using baseless computation of imported raw materials and removals to a baseless projection of taxes due ranging from P4.4 billion to P5 billion, instead of competing fairly and honestly in the cigarette market."

"Who is the source of the estimated volume of removals and how was the estimate computed? Or who are the source of these tax computations of cigarettes produced out of raw local and imported materials?" Ocampo asked. Enditem