Bureau of Customs files charges vs oil firm execs

MANILA, Philippines - Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez filed yesterday smuggling charges against three officials of the oil importing company Oillink International Corp. whom he accused of defrauding the government of P700 million when they undervalued the shipment of diesel oil in year 2004.

Alvarez presented to Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Leila de Lima the case filed against Oillink chairman and owner Paul Chi Ting Co, president Esther Magleo, and importation and finance manager Janice Co Reyes.

Alvarez said the filing of the case, opened a “proverbial Pandora’s box which could help expose some other oil industry players’ deeply hidden skeletons and provide us with a better understanding as to how the syndicates involved in oil smuggling are able to cheat the government billions of pesos.”

He added that while the fraudulent importation happened six years ago, he considered this as a “major breakthrough since it marked the first time that the Bureau of Customs (BOC) was able to uncover and document a pattern of deception and under-declaration that was most likely being practiced too by some other unscrupulous oil industry players.”

He said the BOC would also backtrack on the previous transactions of Oillink to determine if there were other illegal transactions committed.

Alvarez explained that there had been several instances when the BOC conducted investigations on Oillink, but this was the first time that a case has been filed against them before the DOJ.

The Customs chief that they are also conducting further investigation to determine if there are bureau officials and employees who may have aided in the smuggling of oil in the country.

Documents furnished by the shipping company Malteses Motorship Highland showed that Oillink imported a total of 221,244.82 barrels equivalent to 29,454.375 metric tons of diesel fuel. On July 21, 2004, the equivalent volume of oil products that arrived in Mariveles, Bataan reached 35 million liters.

But it appeared that the duties and taxes paid by the firm totaled only 177,244.82 barrels or 23,596,644 metric tons, or nearly 6,000 metric tons or 44,000 barrels less than the volume indicated in the ship’s surveyor report that was submitted by the company Intertek Caleb Brett-KIMSCO of Korea.

It appeared Oillink would allegedly break its shipments into five parcels, covered by different bills of lading, but it would only pay the duties and taxes of four parcels.

One of the documents they obtained was Oillink’s ship tanks report that was reportedly issued by the Marine Inspection and Testing Services Inc. (MITS), but MITS general manager Manuel Tan clarified to the BOC that its company was not hired to conduct a survey on the tanker and did not issue any report on the said cargo.

“There was no doubt that Oillink submitted manufactured and falsified documents to consummate its smuggling activity,” Alvarez added.

The commissioner said that last year the government was estimated to have lost P20-billion revenue in oil smuggling. But this year, they have introduced measures that would lessen revenue lost.