Mighty Corp on the malicious campaign against them

Mighty Corp. slammed the smear campaign against it by competitors, saying there may be a bigger agenda behind the mudslinging.

“Mighty continues to be vilified for having stood up to industry giants. Since last year, the smear campaign has been nothing more than a rehash of the same lies and allegations,” executive vice president and spokesman Oscar Barrientos said.

“It is puzzling and alarming that our critics have resorted to recycling old issues against us. And we have to ask, why?”

He said Mighty’s strong performance in the past 13 months appeared to have unsettled its competitors, notably Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corp., which controlled 94 percent of the market in 2012 until its share dropped to about 70 percent by the end of 2013.

Barrientos credited the government’s move to reform the country’s excise tax system and Mighty’s own corporate reforms for its strong performance.

“Our competitors have thrown everything, including the kitchen sink at us, and we have just become stronger and better. Obviously, Mighty has proven that even a small local company can go toe to toe with a giant monopoly like PMFTC. But is the smear campaign really just their way of dealing with their failures in the market or is there something more to it?” Barrientos asked.

“There may be a bigger agenda behind the anti-Mighty smear campaign. Reforms in the excise tax system have obviously dealt a heavy blow to PMFTC. It is a fact that they waged a campaign to stop the passage of RA 10351, because it would mean losing their monopoly. This could be a reason why they are now trying to pin us down, so that they can say the sin tax Law doesn’t work,” the Mighty official said.

Barrientos cited a claim by critics that Mighty was evading payment of P4 billion in excise taxes.

“We paid P8.2 billion in excise taxes last year. We were accused of evading tax payment because we were supposed to have paid P12 billion based on a 20 percent market share. We only hit 20 percent in December 2013, and yet our critics made it appear that we were doing 20 percent year-round which was totally untrue, Barrientos said.