It was the early morning hours of Wednesday, Jan. 21. The place: an area near the cargo terminal of the Cebu Pacific Air at the old Domestic Road in Pasay City.  A man comes out from the shadows to meet an incoming jeep.

As the jeep comes to a stop, several men, some of them armed, suddenly emerge, seemingly from nowhere, and collar the man and two or three people from the vehicle.  Forty boxes are unloaded from the jeep and upon examination, are discovered to contain contraband items.

Prior to all these, there was no shout of ?Lights, camera, action? as one may expect in a film shooting?and that?s simply because no movie was being shot. Everything that transpired was real-life drama involving law enforcers and members of a criminal syndicate about to smuggle counterfeit compact discs, video compact discs and digital video discs.

Those who nabbed the man who emerged from the dark and the occupants of the jeep were lawmen. The operation was conducted by combined elements of the Optical Media Board headed by Chairman Edu Manzano; the Intelligence and Investigation Department of the Manila International Airport Authority under Col. Rene Gonzales; and men from the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Naval Intelligence Security Group-National Capital Region.

Reports later identified one of those apprehended as Aliumudin Imam Yusop of Poblacion Lambatan, Marawi City.  Three others were able to escape and authorities are now looking into the possible participation of a certain SPO4 Cesar Suarez, said to be an active police officer. Suarez is supposedly assigned to the cargo terminal to man the X-ray machine, which is used to detect banned or illegal items. Reports also said he may have aided the escape of the other suspects.

The confiscated media products were scheduled to be shipped to Bacolod, Tagbilaran, Roxas, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, Dumaguete, General Santos and other key cities in the Visayas and Mindanao. The operation resulted from intelligence reports received earlier which prompted the authorities to put the place under surveillance. The pirated video products reportedly came from Arlegui, Quiapo and the syndicate was shipping the counterfeit items on a daily basis, starting at 11 a.m.

The brains behind the whole thing is only known as the ?Big Boss? whose identity still has to be uncovered?as is usual in cases like these.

According to police reports, a separate shipment of 36 boxes of pirated materials burned into CDs, were also intercepted.  These were supposed to be shipped to Cebu City.  Chairman Manzano also disclosed that OMB operatives had seized another 27 boxes of pirated copies of the movie ?Love Me Again? which stars Piolo Pascual and Angel Locsin.  Each box contained 500 copies of the movie. The total came up to 13,500 bootleg copies of the movie?for one shipment alone.

Had the shipment not been intercepted, it could have accounted for a huge revenue loss for the producer of ?Love Me Again? as these 13,500 pirated copies meant so many people drawn away from watching the film in the theaters.

The point here is that piracy continues to be a big problem not only for the entertainment industry but for the entire economy as a whole. It is a highly profitable enterprise that for the relatively small capital required, can give the investor huge returns, and the risks are quite manageable, especially for those who are openly generous with grease money.  These factors constitute an attractive incentive for pirates? and a constant challenge for Manzano and his people.

There is no stronger proof of piracy?s huge money-making potential than the sight of mor? and more stalls and outlets of fake video products sprouting like mushrooms in both urban and rural areas?a problem that Manzano said has now become a threat to national security.

Consider that in spite of its very limited annual budget of about P27 million or so, the OMB conducted a total of 1,820 inspections including raids, in shopping malls, markets and other commercial outlets. This means an average of more than six inspections per day for the less than 300 working days of the year. It also served 11 search warrants and undertook the audit of the operations, production facilities and equipment of eight different plants and factories engaged in the optical media business.

The agency is so wanting in personnel complement that it has to borrow people from the National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation whenever it conducts raids.  Fortunately, it also gets the cooperation and assistance of officials and security personnel of such agencies as the MIAA, the Bureau of Customs, and, as in the Jan. 21 operations at the cargo terminal of Cebu Pacific Air, even certain units of the military.

The OMB?s operations last year resulted in the seizure of 5,122,000 fake and pirated optical discs, numerous replicating and stamping machines, 20,200 casings, hundreds of other equipment consisting of CD burners, DVD players, TV sets, CD writers, CPUs, speaker, amplifiers and sub-woofers.

Overall, the value of the confiscated machines, equipment and optical media discs totaled P1.727 billion.  This represents a huge 390- percent increase over the P443 million worth of materials seized by the agency in 2007. Suprisingly, the OMB got the support of the Legitimate Retailers Association of the Philippines, a group of traders in Quiapo, Manila and adjacent areas who sell audio and video products.  Manzano said the group, led by its president Yassin Ibrahim, voluntarily approached him and offered to help in the government?s anti-piracy campaign.

To erase any public skepticism about the government?s determination to eradicate this problem, we would like to see big fish in the video piracy racket prosecuted and jailed.  And whatever happened to Manzano?s proposal for government authorities to impose sanctions on owners and operators of commercial buildings that tolerate the peddling of counterfeit video products by its locators and stallholders?