CJ faces uphill battle on bank deposits - prosecution

MANILA, Philippines - The camp of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona will be hard put to explain his peso and dollar deposits in two banks, his congressmen-prosecutors said yesterday.

“The defense is facing an uphill battle to prove their claim that the Chief Justice does not own the tens of millions in peso deposits the prosecution has uncovered in Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) and Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI),” prosecution spokesman Rep. Miro Quimbo of Marikina said.

He said officers of the two banks told the Senate impeachment court that Corona had more than P19 million in PSBank and P12 million in BPI, or a total of more than P31 million, as of Dec. 31, 2010.

“These deposits are in addition to an undetermined amount of dollars hidden in five accounts in PSBank, whose existence has been confirmed by bank president Pascual Garcia III,” he said.

Quimbo added that on Dec. 12, 2011, the day the House of Representatives impeached Corona, the Chief Justice, through his wife, emptied three accounts in PSBank of more than P36 million.

Defense lawyers claimed the P36 million belonged to Basa-Guidote Enterprise, Inc. (BGEI), a corporation belonging to the family of Mrs. Corona. They said the Chief Justice had to empty his accounts “to protect the money.”

Quimbo said the claim that the money belonged to BGEI is merely an “excuse” to justify the huge amount found under Corona’s name in PSBank and BPI, and which the Chief Justice did not declare in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN).

He said the defense would try to link BGEI’s money to Corona’s bank deposits while conveying the message that the salaries and allowances of the Chief Justice and his wife were enough to make them afford the properties they own.

“The Basa-Guidote money is their answer to the bank deposits we have been able to uncover. Their answer to the properties is that the Chief Justice earns so much and Mrs. Corona earns so much and they were able to buy those properties. Of course, we’ve shown that those two really do not tally,” he stressed.

He pointed out that to link BGEI’s money to Corona’s more than P31 million in PSBank and BPI at the end of 2010, the defense would have to produce a paper trail showing how the money ended up in the personal bank accounts of the Chief Justice.

As for the P26 million in salaries and allowances Corona allegedly earned between 2002 and 2010, Quimbo said of that amount, only a little over P5 million was in the form of salaries.

The rest was in the form of expense allowances that should have been spent for the purposes for which they were given, such as for transportation and representation, he said.   

He said aside from justifying the Coronas’ property acquisitions, the defense would have to explain why the Chief Justice did not declare his condominium units in his SALNs for the years in which they were acquired.

Defense lawyers tried to justify why their client did not declare in his 2004 SALN the Ayala Avenue, Makati condo unit he and his wife purchased in that year by presenting witnesses who testified that Mrs. Corona had complaints about the unit and she accepted it only in August 2009.

Still, some senator-judges said the Coronas paid for their unit in 2004 and the Chief Justice should have declared it in his SALN for that year.

Quimbo said the Bonifacio Ridge condo unit in Global City, Taguig, which was purchased in 2005, and the P14.5-million Bellagio Tower penthouse, also in Global City, which was acquired in December 2009, were declared only in 2010.

The defense would have to tell the impeachment court why the Chief Justice was five years and one year late in disclosing his two precious assets,” he said.