OFWs: Pirates from the Caribbean?
by TRISHA MARCELO and ISAGANI DE LA PAZ
(Updated March 29, 2006)

SOME overseas Filipino workers may resemble Johnny Depp, but unlike the esteemed "pirate of the Caribbean," they are regarded as "unwitting" couriers of bootleg videos to and from the Philippines, experts discussed with the OFW Journalism Consortium.

An official of Association of Video Distributors of the Philippines (AvidPhil) said the government should look into this matter. AvidPhil, a national trade association promoting the video industry, made the call after the United States Trade Representative (USTR) removed the Philippines from the priority list of governments that American firms accuse of allowing intellectual property theft.

The USTR placed the Philippines under the Priority Watch List of countries that could be placed under trade sanctions due to what it alleges as "rampant" IP rights infringements. Its list of infringements include optical media piracy, copyright and trademark violations of all types, importation of counterfeit merchandise, software piracy of all types, and bootleg cable television. The PWL is a step above a US trade sanction and below the Ordinary Watch List. According to the Philippine IP office, upgrading the Philippines to the status of OWL –a day before President Gloria Arroyo declared a state of emergency– effectively removes the threat of US trade sanctions against the country.

A negative finding from the USTR, the IP Office added, could have affected the country's export relations with the US. According to a recent International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) report, the Philippines has to satisfy the USTR's discretionary criteria, which include providing "adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights," to qualify for unilaterally granted trade preferences.

The Philippines participates in the US Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program that offers duty-free imports of certain Philippine products to the US. From January to November 2005, nearly US$936-million worth of Philippine goods, or 11.1 percent of the country's total exports to the US, entered the US under the GSP program, the IIPA said in its report dated February 13, 2006.

The Philippines should not continue to expect such favorable treatment at this level when it fails to meet the discretionary criteria, the IIPA said before the USTR decided to upgrade the country into the OWL.

However, the threat of being downgraded back to the PWL remains, according to AvidPhil. "Authorities should look into the products that are being brought by the OFWs into the country as well as those being brought abroad because some of these are pirated materials," said AvidPhil executive director Eduardo Sazon.

A member of the Intellectual Property Coalition (IPC), AvidPhil has been fighting piracy in the country since it expanded its members last year to include distributors of non-motion picture videograms such as
karaoke and music videos.

"They (OFWs) are unwittingly becoming tools in carrying pirated materials," Sazon added without giving statistics or details to support his views.

Unfair
HOWEVER, Ellene Sana, executive director of the Center for Migrant Advocacy, said the accusation was "unfair." Anyone who travel, not only OFWs, can carry pirated materials, Sana told the Consortium.

"It is unfair and uncalled for to single out OFWs. It can happen to anyone…so it's everybody's concern," she said.

Indeed, even IPO director general Adrian Cristobal Jr. said that while 85 percent to 95 percent of pirated materials in the Philippines come from abroad, OFWs carrying pirated materials are "marginal."

"What is alarming is what you see here. You don't have to go far to see how serious the problem here in our own stores," Cristobal added. Cristobal may be referring to several locations in Metro Manila alone
where sidewalk vendors openly sell bootlegged copies of foreign and local audio and video optical disks.
The IIPA claims that piracy of OD products "causes grave losses to all the copyright industries" whose sectors are increasingly using a common set of media to distribute their products worldwide.

The IIPA is a coalition of seven trade associations formed in 1984 to represent the US copyright-based industries in bilateral and multilateral efforts to improve international protection of copyright materials.
Pirated compact discs (CDs), video CDs (VCDs), CD-ROMs, CD-Recordables (CD-Rs), digital versatile discs (DVDs), and DVD-Recordables (DVD-Rs) containing protected music, sound recordings, audiovisual works,
business and entertainment software, and books and journals have quickly decimated the market for legitimate US products, the IIPA said in its Special 301 Letter to the USTR.

"Burning" has nearly become our industries' biggest "hard goods" piracy threat, the coalition added.
The IIPA said OD piracy in the Philippines consists of imports, particularly from China and Malaysia, less so from Indonesia, but local production is increasing, now making up at least 30 percent of pirated discs.

It added there are 11 OD production facilities, including two mastering facilities and one DVD-9 facility (with two lines). The IIPA said industry estimates there are roughly 38 lines in the Philippines, amounting to a production capacity of 133 million discs per year. "There is little authorized production, and unfortunately, in the Philippines, the capacity to produce ODs exceeds the ability of right holders to license production," the IIPA added.

Cristobal said government has to strengthen controls in the country's points of entry and exit. Cristobal added that the Bureau of Customs, a main transit point of equipment and products, is eyeing the installation of X-rays.

The government, he said, will also work on bilateral agreements with other countries to address the proliferation of pirated materials from countries the IIPA said were the major sources of these materials.
Last year, the Labor department has cautioned OFWs from bringing pirated CDs with them when they fly to and from host countries.

This was after several OFWs nabbed at airports reportedly confessed to planning on selling pirated music and film CDs to fellow Filipino workers. end

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