Jetti: Raps baseless

Jetti Petroleum Inc. has dismissed as baseless allegations that it was engaged in oil smuggling.

“While Jetti has yet to receive the complaint, the board of directors and officers of the company would like to assure its customers, shareholders, dealers, suppliers, creditors and partners that Jetti will fight this baseless claim,” said company president Joselito Tibayan Magalona.

Magalona issued the statement over the weekend after the Bureau of Customs filed last week a P4.1-billion smuggling case against him and two brokers of Jetti products for allegedly failing to pay the correct amount of duties on oil products it imported over a 12-month period beginning June last year.

The customs bureau claimed that Jetti oil shipments had skirted “load-and-discharge port survey inspections” that were supposed to be made by any of the six government-accredited auditors.

“Jetti Petroleum takes this opportunity to state that it is not in any way involved in smuggling and, moreover, has no unpaid obligations to the government. Jetti Petroleum is a law abiding and responsible corporate citizen and taxpayer. It has never been involved or implicated in any illegal activity,” Magalona said.