MANILA, March 6 (Reuters) - Proceeds from the sale of counterfeit cigarettes, medicines, CDs and DVDs that are regularly smuggled into the southern Philippines could be helping fund al Qaeda-linked militants in the region, a security expert said on Thursday.Jeffrey Williams, managing director of private security and investigation firm Orion Support Inc., warned innocent purchases from Internet sites and street markets of fake Nike merchandise, counterfeit CDs and DVDs could be funding militant attacks.
Orion Support Inc. is a private investigator and one of its specialties is Intellectual Property Rights Investigations and Enforcement Actions. It lends support to the fight against film piracy but is not engaged in any kind of work that is related to the war in Mindanao.
Mr. Williams is merely guessing. I didn’t know that a detective’s work requires him to draw conclusions not supported by the facts he possesses.
The funny thing is how Mr. Williams is appealing to the sense of patriotism of the Filipinos to curb film piracy. Don’t buy pirated DVDs and you help end the war in Mindanao kind of reasoning.
Filipinos might think they’re patriotic but I doubt if even half of the regular patrons of pirated DVDs will stop buying them even if a boycott will, in fact, end the war in Mindanao. Even if they’re truly patriotic, they aren’t that patriotic.
