Thursday, June 14, 2007 John-John tags complaint as ‘persecution’
FORMER Cebu vice governor John Gregory Osmeña has formally answered the criminal complaint against him over the allegedly illegal importation of a drug precursor.
In a counter-affidavit subscribed and sworn before Consul Noemi Diaz of the City of Los Angeles in the United States, the former legislator and head of the Provincial Board of Cebu denied all the allegations against him.
He narrated how he was surprised when he learned that he and his former office staff members were again being implicated as respondents in the complaint filed by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) last March.
Reiterating what his Cebu-based lawyer, Edgar Gica, claimed before the panel of investigators handling the case, Osmeña said the charge was a rehash of the propaganda launched against him when he ran for governor in 2004.
“Such accusation crops up only when I and my family indicate an interest to seek a public office in government and only during every election time in the Philippines,” Osmeña said.
The PDEA complaint came out in the same week his father, former senator John Osmeña, floated the possibility that John-John would run for congressman in the first district of Cebu.
“The instant case, which I and my former staff have, is part of a political smear campaign lodged against me and my family designed by our political opponents and detractors,” he added.
He described the complaint as “political persecution” of him and his father.
He said he and his co-respondents–Joebert Cuesta, Ma. Rowena Roldan and Rorela Villegas–were simply employees of his PB office.
Not stockholders
“(They) were never known to be stockholders of Coastside Ventures Inc. but whose names were just entered and supplied in the blanks of the information sheet of said corporation,” he stressed.
He pointed out that it seems odd that his staff members supposedly only became members of the Coastside board in 2003 when the firm was established in 1999 yet.
Coastside Ventures, with its proprietor Mike Cummings, was the identified consignee of the shipment.
Osmeña maintained that the Bureau of Customs recognized Cummings alone as the man responsible for the questioned shipment.
He cited a warrant of seizure and detention that then Customs collector Billy Bibit signed last March 17, 2004, when the shipment was first discovered and held.
“I have no involvement, whatsoever, in any importation of any dangerous drugs, pseudoephedrine, precursors or essential chemicals, much less that one allegedly done by Mike Cummings in the import documents,” he said. (KNR)
