Destruction of seized Mighty cigarettes to be completed in March —DOF

The destruction of seized Mighty cigarettes is expected wouldn't be completed until next month, due to the large volume of illegal stocks confiscated by the government.

In an e-mailed statement on Thursday, the Department of Finance (DOF) said the government expects to complete the destruction of the seized Mighty-branded cigarettes on March 7.

As of February 2, a total of 98,078 master cases were still up for burning at the Holcim Philippines Geocycle facility in Bulacan where the cigarettes are being "co-processed."

"The 'co-processing' method pioneered by Holcim Geocycle ensures the total thermal destruction of waste materials, while reducing toxic gas emissions and land and groundwater pollution," the DOF said.

"The resulting by-product is used as raw material for cement," it added.

Aside from this, a separate batch of 9,347 master cases or more than 4 million cigarette packs are also set for destruction in Davao City.

The DOF started destroying the cigarette stocks in November, with at least P142.44-million worth of products burned in Bunawan, Davao.

The government also destroyed at least P3.3-billion worth of Mighty cigarettes in Bulacan in December.

This comes after operatives of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in March filed tax evasion charges worth P9.56 billion against Mighty Corp. before the Department of Justice (DOJ) for supposedly using bogus tax stamps.

Mighty Corp. was then forced to be sold to Japan Tobacco Inc. (JTI) for it to be able to pay the government P25 billion to settle its obligations.

The DOF earlier this month said excise taxes collected from Mighty Corp. have since increased by 262 percent in September to December 2017 at P20.22 billion from the P5.57 billion the same period in 2016.

According to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, the latest developments "send a strong message that tax evasion in our country does not pay."

"You might as well stop because you will never succeed," he added. — MDM, GMA News