Equitable-PCI VP appears as hostile witness for Erap

A bank executive who testified against ousted President Joseph Estrada in the 2000 impeachment trial was presented as a witness for the defense during trial at the Sandiganbayan yesterday.

Testifying as a "hostile" witness, Manuel Curato, Equitable PCI Bank vice president and head of the legal department, said he appeared as a witness before the Senate impeachment trial in 2000 on the orders of bank officials led by Ricardo Romulo, then Equitable PCI Bank chairman, who also headed the Makati Business Club.

However, Curato told Special Prosecutor Dennis Villa Ignacio during cross-examination that he and other bank officials were compelled to testify before the Senate impeachment court after Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., the presiding officer, ruled that Republic Act 1405, the Bank Secrecy Law, could not be invoked in an impeachment trial.

Curato showed the special division a copy of a subpoena from the Senate impeachment court, dated Dec. 6, 2000 and addressed to the Equitable PCI Bank’s "custodian of records."

Such a position did not exist at the bank, he told the justices in open court.

Former senator Rene Saguisag, Estrada’s lead counsel, said the subpoena was meant for a deposition-taking that did not take place.

Curato told the court that he and other bank officials did not attend the deposition-taking on advice of their lawyers, who told them to invoke the Bank Secrecy Law.

A bank lawyer, Mario Bautista, stood as a private prosecutor during the impeachment trial for Clarissa Ocampo, a former Equitable PCI Bank official who had testified to seeing Estrada sign documents as "Jose Velarde," he added.

Defense lawyers argued that Estrada was "a victim of a conspiracy" hatched by the so-called "civil society" to illegally unseat him.

During Estrada’s plunder trial in 2002, Curato testified for the prosecution that the Equitable PCI Bank board issued resolutions from December 2000 to February 2001 authorizing officials and employees of the bank to testify in any proceeding relative to the Jose Velarde account, as well to provide any needed legal support.

Curato was presented in court by Saguisag and Raymond Fortun, another defense lawyer.

But Villa Ignacio told reporters that, far from hurting the state’s case against Estrada, the defense lawyers did not expect Curato’s testimony to "ruin their plan and turn the tables on them."

"The testimony of the witness (Curato) confirmed that Clarissa (Ocampo) and himself testified by virtue of a valid order coming from the impeachment court," he said.

"Their (defense) theory was that as there was no subpoena issued for him (Curato) to testify, all that he said in the impeachment court should not be considered. But it was a valid order coming from the impeachment court," Villa Ignacio said.

Curato’s testimony affirmed the link between the Jose Velarde account and the investment management account that, according to Ocampo’s testimony, was signed by Estrada as "Jose Velarde" on Feb. 4, 2000 in Malacañang, he added.

However, Estrada’s lawyers contend that the Jose Velarde account, which held at least P3.23 billion, actually belongs to businessman Jaime Dichaves.