Pirated Pinoy music now manufactured in China

MANILA, Philippines - This time around, Filipinos might be listening to pirated local music manufactured in China.

With the tough crackdown they have initiated against pirated music in the country, the Optical Media Board (OMB) yesterday said “pirates” are now reproducing Original Pilipino Music (OPM) in China and are smuggling them back to the Philippines.

“This is what they (illegal manufacturers of bogus digital versatile discs (DVDs) and video compact discs (VCDs) are doing now because they experienced difficulty in producing their (pirated products) here, as a result of our operations and continued vigilance in Manila... So they are now bringing the original cds out of the country and do mass producing abroad,” said OMB executive director Ronnie Ricketts.

After the mass production, these illegal manufacturers would then try to smuggle their products back into the country.

Three weeks ago, the X-ray Inspection Project of the Bureau of Customs reportedly resulted in the discovery of 183 boxes of assorted music and movie in “high quality, blue ray” VCDs and DVDs that arrived at the Port of Manila.

“The (pirated) OPM came at the right time since it’s Christmas, some of the pirated music vcds even contained OPM Christmas songs. These were manufactured in China and brought back to the Philippines. This is a very good accomplishment (of the BOC). The movie industry, music industry and even the international body would be pleased with this development, since there were also foreign movies that were copied,” said Ricketts.

The OMB estimated the value of the illegal shipment to amount to P35 million.

Ricketts praised the BOC and the XIP for their latest accomplishment.

“Hopefully, these (illegal manufacturers) would now be afraid to import (their items) into the country because the BOC is guarding the ports,” he said.

BOC Commissioner Rufino Biazon said the pirated goods, which were misdeclared as housewares and leather wares, were consigned to Reachable Enterprises. The items, which were found at the back of a 40-foot container van, were reportedly shipped from China.

BOC-XIP head lawyer Lourdes Mangaoang said the smuggled discs were discovered by their x-ray machines.

“There was no tip given to us. It was detected by our x-ray inspector who saw the pirated items at the back of the container van,” Mangaoang said.

Mangaoang explained that not all cargo pass through the x-ray machines.

“We have an electronic selectivity system wherein the computer selects which container would be scanned. We scan about 6-10 percent of the cargo coming in. Only the high-risk shipments are being selected because we cannot scan all containers. There are about 1,000 containers released everyday, if we scan all of them it could take us weeks,” Mangaoang said, adding that the pirated movies and music discs would be destroyed.

Apart from the pirated items, the BOC-XIP also presented a smuggled top-of-the-line Harley Davidson big bike that was misdeclared as consumable personal effects and was found along with some balikbayan boxes. The shipment reportedly came from California.

The brand new big bike that costs P1.5 million would be put up for auction.

Mangaoang pointed out that the maximized use of the “BOC’s 30 x-ray units installed in the country’s various international ports of entry have resulted in the confiscation of over P16-billion worth of smuggled goods since the start of the BOC-X-ray project in year 2007.”