Antipiracy board slacking off, says COA

The Commission on Audit (COA) has taken the Optical Media Board (OMB) to task for its failure to carry out its mandate to stem digital piracy in the country, noting a significant decline in the number of antipiracy operations the agency conducted last year.

In a 2014 audit report, the COA said that nearly all of the 1,960 administrative cases filed against companies and individuals suspected of involvement in video piracy were dismissed by the OMB for lack of evidence.

The state auditors said the drop in the number of raids and inspections conducted by the OMB last year “[raised] concerns as to the agency’s ability and commitment to curb piracy.”

Short of target

“The accomplishments of the OMB in terms of inspection of establishments and confiscation of optical media and equipment declined compared to the… previous years and fell short of the targets for the year,” the COA said.

“[The] OMB fell short of its objective of curtailing, if not stopping, violations of the Optical Media Act,” it noted.

In 2014, the OMB’s Enforcement and Inspection Division (EID) checked out only 2,193 commercial establishments, down by almost 20 percent from the previous year.

The COA said this number was also below the OMB’s target of 2,400 establishments to be inspected as stated in its annual budget.

The OMB, an agency directly under the Office of the President, received more than P50 million last year from the Department of Budget and Management for operational expenses.

Small pickings

The COA said the OMB confiscated as many as 450 sacks of pirated discs every day. But in some raids, OMB personnel seized only 40 fake discs, or one-fourth of a sack, of counterfeit DVDs (digital video discs).

On average, a sack contained 400 discs. Some sacks, however, were found to have only 360-370 discs “since most sacks were actually not filled to maximum capacity.”

The COA said a total of 2,372,959 optical discs, 65 television sets, 50 DVD players, 20 amplifiers, six subwoofers and 30 audio speakers were seized by the OMB in 2014.

The audit body said EID agents blamed the vacancy in the OMB leadership for the dwindling number of operations, as this led to the “nonissuance of mission orders for a certain period.”

On the dock

OMB Chair Ronnie Ricketts and four other officials of the board were suspended by Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales in August 2014 for allegedly ordering the return of confiscated pirated video discs to the company suspected of manufacturing them in the first place.

Morales also approved their indictment for graft in the Sandiganbayan.

The COA said EID personnel also cited the failure to conduct surveillance operations “that would have identified possible violators that could make an impact in their drive against piracy.”

It said the OMB agents also admitted a “lack of motivation on [their] part.”

“We recommended that [the OMB leadership] revisit its policies and strategies on monitoring and enforcement with the end view of identifying and resolving issues contributing to their accomplishments,” the COA said.

Such measures, it added, should be aimed at “aiding the agency in its function of monitoring the manufacture, mastering, replication, importation and exportation of optical media.”

The COA also assailed the OMB for its failure to file not one criminal case against suspected manufacturers and traders in pirated discs, which, it said, “[defeats]) the objective of the OMB to protect and promote intellectual property rights.”