<div class="image-200">
<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/malabon-tobacco.webp"  alt="Malabon Cigarette" />
</div>
<p>
Up to within a year of the abolition of Monopoly, a very good smokeable cigar could be purchased in the <i>estancos</i> (licensed depots for the sale of monopolized goods) from one halfpenny and upwards, but as soon as the free trade project was definitely decided upon, the Government factories, in order to work off their old stocks of inferior leaf, filled the <i>estancos</i> with cigars of the worst quality.
</p>
<p>
During the first year of Free Trade, cigar and cigarette factories were rapidly started in Manila and the provinces, but up to 1897 only some eight or ten factories had improved the quality of the manufactured article, whilst prices rose so considerably that the general public probably lost by the reform. Cigars, like those sold in the <i>estancos</i> in 1881, could never again be got so good for the same price, but at higher prices much better brands were offered. 
</p>
<p>
A small tax on the cigar and tobacco-leaf trade, officially announced in August 1883, had the beneficial effect of causing the closure of some of the very small manufactories, and reduced the probability of a large over-supply of an almost worthless article. 
</p>
<p>
As to the relative quality of Philippine tobacco, there are very divided opinions. Decidedly the best Manila cigars cannot compare with those made from the famous leaf of the <i>Vuelta de Abajo</i> from Cuba, and in the European markets they have very justly failed to meet with the same favorable reception as the Cuban cigars generally.
</p>

<h4>
Source: 
</h4>
<ol class="article-sources">
<li>
The Philippine Islands,  pages 347-349, John Foreman, New York: C. Scribner's sons, 1899.
</li>
</ol>




December 31, 1882: the government monopoly of tobacco ceased