BIZ BUZZ: Knocking down the knockoff culture
One of the country’s chief counterfeit busters has expressed confidence that the Philippines’ long-running fake-goods plague may finally be nearing a “sunset.”
Teodoro Pascua, director general of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL), said even some of the country’s most notorious havens for counterfeit goods are beginning to clean up their act.
At Greenhills Shopping Center, for instance, Pascua said sellers are increasingly shifting to locally made products instead of knockoffs—a sharp contrast from the wall of counterfeit shoes that once characterized the San Juan shopping mall.
Signs of improvement are also emerging at 168 Shopping Mall in Divisoria and, perhaps more importantly, in the far more difficult-to-police world of online marketplaces, according to the IPOPHL chief.
Pascua credits some of that progress to heightened government enforcement, including the establishment of an antipiracy desk at Greenhills and expanded partnerships with brands to crack down on counterfeits sold online.
But declaring victory may have to wait, if you ask the IPOPHL chief.
For all the strides made in cleaning up the market for fake goods, Greenhills remains the only Philippine establishment on Washington’s list of notorious markets for counterfeiting and piracy.
Many storefronts there continue to sell counterfeit electronics, perfumes, watches, shoes, accessories and fashion items, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative.
But Pascua is confident that Greenhills will eventually shed that notorious tag, although he declined to say when he expects that to happen.
And even if it does, the Philippines may never be completely out of the woods.
“Can we remove all counterfeits? No. I don’t think so,” Pascua said. “Because it’s a culture. That’s why we’re attacking the culture.”
