Representatives from Mighty Corp, other local cigarette firms completes training

Thirty people, including 17 from local tobacco manufacturer Mighty Corp., have completed a proficiency-training seminar conducted by American experts on tobacco leaf utilization, leaf chemistry and leaf purchases.
The seminar, jointly conducted by MC and American Tobacco Associates (TA) Inc., also trained the participants on the US Leaf Standards Grading System for both Burley and flue-cured tobacco developed by the US tobacco industry in the early 1900s.

Bobby Wellons, tobacco training specialist from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) conducted the US Leaf Standards Seminar on Burley and flue-cured together with TA’s vice president, Hank Mozingo.


According to retired Gen. Edilberto Adan, MC president, understanding leaf tobacco grading standards provides the foundation for learning and appreciating tobacco qualities and characteristics in the Philippines.


“More specifically,” he said, “the seminars helped those directly involved in tobacco manufacturing gain a better understanding of the unique characteristics of each US tobacco grade and which grades are more suitable for specific blend needs.”     


While MC provided all the necessary on-site assistance and essentials, the TA group supplied all tobacco samples and training materials. 


The short but comprehensive course was conducted at the new MC facility (Pavilion) located inside the factory grounds.  


Aside from the MC participants, the others came from the National Tobacco Administration, Universal Leaf Philippines, Trans-Manila Inc., Continental Leaf, Prudence and WCD. 


The first two days of the seminar focused on the Burley tobacco grades and characteristics. The remaining three days covered flue-cured. 


At the end of the training course, each participant received a certification from USDA for completing the program.
Overall, the tobacco grading seminar has successfully served its purpose, providing participants with a deeper and a more extensive knowledge on the different sectors of the tobacco industry.

Foreign tobacco company willing to partner Mighty Corp, local companies

The British American Tobacco (BAT) has signified its willingness to partnering with another cigarette manufacturing company to cement a strong foothold in the country’s lucrative tobacco industry.

Robert Eugenio, BAT Philippines head of corporate and regulatory affairs, said yesterday that the Lucky Strike cigarette-maker is open to any “beneficial” opportunity in the Philippines.

Since BAT’s return to the Philippine market in 2012, the company’s market share grew at a snail’s pace despite a money-losing marketing strategy of selling imported cigarette packets below the economical price.

BAT, which unveiled a $200- million investment plan for the Philippines in 2012, currently has a weak distribution network in the country, and been incurring an additional cost for the importation of its Malaysia-made Lucky Strike and Pall Mall brands.

“In the process of running a business, we would look at whether partnering with another company would make sense than putting up our own manufacturing facility,” Eugenio said. “In the past, we partnered with La Suerte Cigar and Cigarette Factory, but it was terminated when we left in 2009.”

Meanwhile, industry sources said that BAT has already approached the Wongchuking family of Mighty Corp earlier this year to ask if the latter is open to any partnership.

“I’m not aware and involved in such a transaction,” Eugenio said when asked if BAT is in talks with the Bulacan-based cigarette company.

Sources said BAT wants a partnership with Mighty following its success in snatching up a substantial market share of local market leader PMFTC, a joint venture of LT Group’s Fortune Tobacco Company and Switzerland-based Philip Morris International (PMI).

Since the new excise tax regime took effect in 2013, PMFTC fought tooth and nail to protect its market position against Mighty, which has been very aggressive in offering cheaper alternatives to Lucio Tan and PMI’s premium cigarette brands.

The country’s second largest tobacco company, Mighty, known for the P1-a-stick cigarette, managed to raise its market share from a mere 3 percent in 2012 to nearly 35 percent last year.

However, Mighty’s success is hounded by accusations of tax dodging and smuggling.

Mighty Corp donates tobacco dust for fish pond owners, operators

Local cigarette manufacturer Mighty Corp. said it will donate tobacco dust, a fish pond conditioner that protects local ponds from predators, to help millions of Filipino fish pond owners and operators as well as tobacco farmers nationwide.

“We are going to help the National Tobacco Administration promote the use of tobacco dust by donating to our thousands of fish pond owners and operators all over the country,” Mighty Corp. executive vice president Oscar Barrientos said in a statement.

“In doing so, we are helping both tobacco farmers and fish pond owners and operators increase their yield,” he said, adding the company previously sold tobacco dust to fish pond owners and operators.

Barrientos said the NTA was promoting tobacco dust to control the population of snails and other fish pond predators, as this was “an effective and economic option to replace highly toxic and cyanide-based chemicals used in the preparation or sterilization of fishponds.”

He said the cigarette company aimed to increase the income of the tobacco-growing industry by buying 10 million tobacco leaves from local farmers all over the country.  It allotted P700,000 for the purchase of green leaves.

The NTA manufactures Tobacco Dust Plus at a plant in Sto. Tomas, La Union, where leaves are re-dried and pulverized.

The dust promotes the growth of lablab, an algae and natural fish food, and serves as pond floor conditioner. Pond owners and operators use it to prepare or sterilize fish ponds before stocking fingerlings there.

Fish stocking is the practice of raising fish in a hatchery and releasing them into a river, lake, or the ocean to supplement existing population, or to create a population where none exists.

Studies by a team from the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center in Tigbauan, Iloilo under Joebert Toledo had confirmed the tobacco dust efficacy.

Other studies headed by the government agency showed promising results from the use of tobacco dust as a substitute to chemical fish pond fertilizers.

Mighty aims to help local tobacco farmers earn more with a projected increase in the production of tobacco leaves and tobacco dust while helping pond owners and operators and the environment as well. 

Mighty Corp doubles their tobacco orders

Mighty Corp., one of the country’s local producers of low-priced cigarettes, announced it will buy 10 million kilograms of tobacco products worth millions of pesos from farmers in Northern Luzon and elsewhere in the country.

Mighty executive vice president Oscar Barrientos said in an official letter of intent to National Tobacco Administration administrator Edgardo Zaragoza it would buy tobacco from farmers 100 percent more than the five million kilograms his firm bought in 2013.

“This is to assure our tobacco farmers of our willingness to help in response to the published report of the market leader in the tobacco industry to lessen production this year,” Barrientos, a retired regional trial court judge, said.

The letter of intent, in effect, debunked critics’ allegations that MC has been importing raw materials from foreign countries at low prices and is no longer buying tobacco from local farmers.

Barrientos said the critics had been resorting to a disinformation campaign using convoluted data in an effort to undermine Mighty’s tremendous increase of its market shares.

MC’s market shares surged to almost 20 percent of the low-priced cigarette brands last year from in 2012, resulting in the payment P8.2 billion in excise taxes.

Barrientos said the company’s market shares shot up after the government effectively implemented Republic Act 10352, or the Sin Tax Law, that leveled the playing field in the multibillion-peso tobacco industry which was controlled by Philip Morris and Fortune Tobacco.

The new law that took 14 years to pass and certified as urgent by President Aquino III caused a tremendous migration of smokers from the expensive premium and sub-premium brands to low-priced cigarettes.

It also resulted in some smokers, because of economic reason, to simply quit the vice and thus validated health authorities’ estimate that the sin tax law would result in the decrease of the number of smokers in the country.

Mighty Corp helping people through their charitable projects

Mighty Corp, and its charitable arm, Wong Chu King Foundation was commended by Bishop Rodolfo Beltran of San Fernando City, La Union.

They have been helping out the church by spreading the faith in the Philippines and for prioritizing apostolic works and education in its programs and projects.

According to Beltran, the foundation donated church projects funding the education of poor in Lagawe, Bontoc. The said scholarship grants which was given to four seminarians and students of vocational courses like sewing, weaving and hairstyling.

“The parents of these students are low-income farmers producing only for local consumption,” the bishop said. “So you can imagine the positive impact this kind of support has for them.”, he added.

He also commended for the outreach project for 65,000 organized tobacco farmers of Northern Luzon.

Under the agreement, Mighty Corp  donated to the farmers 16 hand tractors worth P2.5 million and 90 irrigation pumps worth P1.1 million.

“I’m quite happy about all these projects. It’s a big lift for our farmers, not only in La Union but also the whole of Northern Luzon,” Beltran said. “This is something very beautiful as the hand tractors and water pumps encourage our farmers to use modern methods of agriculture.”

Meanwhile, the foundation and Mighty Corp renovated several churches in the country such as earthquake-stricken churches in the Visayas region, Basilica Minore of the Our Lady of Piat Church in Piat, Cagayan in 2012, and the renovation of the Diocesan Shrine of Immaculate Conception in Naic, Cavite last year.

Archbishop Rolando Tirona of the Archdiocese of Caceres in Naga City, Camarines Sur, described them as an upright family and said it was “highly uncharacteristic for them to be involved in the illicit trade practices of technical smuggling and tax evasion.”