San Miguel Corporation of the Philippines (SMC), said recently that it was expecting to be soon freed from the burden of storing the remaining beer bottles of Asia Brewery, Inc. (ABI) in compliance wi…
San Miguel Corporation of the Philippines (SMC), said recently that it was expecting to be soon freed from the burden of storing the remaining beer bottles of Asia Brewery, Inc. (ABI) in compliance with a recent order by the Pasig Regional Trial Court (RTC). SMC officials said the lot amounts to about 120,000 cases, or 2.88 million bottles. SMC officials said they expect some delay in the delivery schedule due to the failure of ABI to cooperate. ABI“s Cabuyao plant recently asked for at least one day before they could accept the bottles delivered by SMC, saying it needed time to check whether it had space in its plant for the bottles. Daniel Trajano, SMC logistics manager, had said it was impossible for ABI not to have enough space for the bottles in its Cabuyao plant considering the size of the facility. SMC officials are concerned that the firm may face similar delays in ABI“s Cagayan plant. It might take ABI four to five months before it completely recovers its bottles from the SMC plant. SMC officials also said that despite its offer to deliver all ABI containers, they were surprised that ABI still decided to conduct a “raid” at SMC“s St. Vincent plant a few weeks ago. Martin Menez, SMC“s counsel from the law office of Roco, Bunag, Kapunan & Migallos, said that if the two firms cannot settle the question, SMC is planning to file a countersuit against ABI.