The company started its operation in April 1949 in Dolores St., Pasay City wherein, several brands of native type cigarettes which were followed by American cigarettes using American grown Virginia and Burley tobaccos were manufactured. In 1955, Philip Morris was manufactured and distributed by La Suerte. Marlboro was made available to the market in year 1957.

By the end of 2002, Philip Morris ended its 47 years of partnership with La Suerte. The end of the licensing agreement made La Suerte to stand on its own cigarette brands for domestic and export.

Despite government policies on the cigarette industry and high cost of taxes implemented and health awareness campaign, the cigarette industry still has a viable long-term future as cigarette volumes and smoking prevalence fall. The industry will survive even the most severe litigation assaults.

Drawing on industry documents, it reveals that the Philippines was long been considered by the tobacco industry as a laissez faire operating environment ripe for exploitation. Areas explored include political corruption, health, employment of consultants, resisting pack labelling, marketing and advertising.

Towards 2012, the Philippine economy has experienced tremendous improvement. With better employment opportunities, many families enjoyed stronger purchasing power, translating into positive growth for tobacco in the Philippines. This included both cigarettes and cigars, with the former being patronized mainly by all income groups and the latter being more popular among the higher income segments.

With RA 10351 signed into law at the end of 2012, January 2013 welcomed the new tax rates, significantly higher than what the previous law required. This translates into a rather gloomy forecast period for tobacco, both for cigarettes and cigars. Whereas cigars were spared the bi-annual increase in taxes over the review period, for the forecast period, they also face up to an annual tax increase alongside cigarettes. Industry sources express their dismay at the decline in demand expected from the almost double price increase, whilst expressing hope that consumers would choose to shift down to cheaper brands instead of giving up on smoking altogether.

With Philippine consumers continuing to prefer to buy cigarettes by the stick, by 2012, it was clear that some legislation set in place during the review period did not have the demand reducing effect originally expected. One major example is the implementation of health warning labels on the packaging of cigarettes. Since the majority of sales of cigarettes in the Philippines are bought by the stick through sari-sari stores, mass consumers did not really come into much contact with the health warnings, posing another problem to legislators working towards requiring graphic health warnings to be printed on cigarette packaging over the forecast years.

We make sure that products manufactured follow the standard requirements and are on time to meet the shipment date in order to maintain the company’s integrity.