IT’S going to be a battle of documents.
Jetti Petroleum Inc. President Joselito Tibayan Magalona said his company is preparing documents to prove its innocence—that all its transactions are aboveboard, contrary to the allegations made in the P4.1-billion smuggling charge filed by outgoing Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez with the Department of Justice.
Magalona also said he and his group were talking with their counsel on the legal action they could take against Alvarez. “It’s the only thing that must be done to enable us to clean our image that was destroyed by Alvarez,” he said.
“We will hold him responsible for this grave injustice. We will take him to task,” Magalona said.
Although Jetti still has yet to receive the formal complaint, Magalona said they are already preparing all the documents they will present once they receive the complaint.
“We have all the documents in order. We have the receipts to prove the payment of taxes and duties,” he said.
Despite the Bureau of Custom’s allegations, Magalona gave assurances it’s business as usual for Jetti and that it continues to import petroleum products.
“We will not stop as we are in this business to serve the Filipino people,” he said.
Magalona said Jetti paid all duties and taxes for its importation of diesel fuel and gasoline through its Mindanao facility from June 2010 to June 2011, contrary to Alvarez’s claims. From January to June 2011, Magalona said, Jetti has already paid the government a total of P470 million in duties and taxes. He estimates that his company will pay the government close to P1 billion in duties and taxes by year-end.
Magalona said they first learned about the alleged complaint from the media.
“We are saddened how Alvarez has unfairly tarnished Jetti’s name. What has taken us more than a decade of hard work to build, Alvarez took only one press conference to destroy,” he said, claiming that Jetti was a victim of trial by publicity.
“The only thing we can do now, as we are trying to do today, is to merely mitigate that damage and prejudice,” he said.
He said Jetti was able to price its products lower than its competitors not because the products are smuggled but because the company is efficient with its “lean but mean” manpower.
“We are not smugglers, we have not smuggled and we will not smuggle. Anyone who says otherwise, and this includes Alvarez, is either sorely mistaken or lying maliciously,” Magalona said.
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By: Paul Anthony A. Isla
Source: Business Mirror, Sept. 15, 2011
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