SC stirs property unrest / Is $2,387,298.76 Corona's?

To the Ombudsman’s request to explain $10 million (P425 million) in “hidden wealth,” Chief Justice Renato Corona replied only through counsel. The amount doesn’t exist, he swore, except as black propaganda on the eve of the reopening of his impeachment trial on Monday.

Yet spreading in news blogs are allegations of Corona’s dollar transactions in one bank alone, totaling $2,858,977.22. Could these be part of the Ombudsman’s $10-million investigation findings?

The $2,858,977.22 consists of seven alleged dealings in Philippine Savings Bank-Katipunan branch, near Corona’s Quezon City residence. Six, totaling $2,387,298.76, are deposits and credit memos; one, for $471,678.46, is an outward remittance. The supposed details:

A “deposit” is in cash or check; “credit memo” can be proceeds from a remittance, time deposit or interest, or a transfer from another account. “Outward remittance” is a payment made from the depositor’s account. The $2,387,298.76 is worth P100,755,944.16 (in today’s $1:P42.205). The $471,678.46 was P22,023.610.65 (in September 2008’s $1:P46.692).

In asking Corona to reply, the Ombudsman cited three complaints for undeclared assets. Reportedly it had gathered details of Corona’s peso and dollar deposits in various banks, using the waiver at the back of his annual sworn Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth. The waiver authorizes the Ombudsman to obtain records of an official’s wealth.

Publicized at the start of Corona’s impeachment trial were five of his purported dollar accounts in PSBank. Supposedly leaked by a “small woman” to a congressman-prosecutor, one document detailed an account number 08919100037-3, with opening balance of $700,000 in October 2008 (P33,617,500 at $1:$48.025).

*      *      *

Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio’s warning is coming true. Thousands of lot owners are becoming restive because of a recent SC ruling that deemed fake an old land title just because, like dozens of others, it lacked the signature of a bureaucrat.

Residents of Santa Rosa City, Laguna, reportedly have been asking about the status of their residential and commercial lots due to the SC’s close 8-7 voting on a former friar land in Quezon City. News items quoted Santa Rosa city assessor Nelly Gomez as saying her constituents will protest the disquieting of their own land titles, also within erstwhile friar lands.

All of Santa Rosa and Cabuyao, and large parts of Calamba and Biñan cities in Laguna were once owned by the Augustinian-Recollect Catholic order during the Spanish times. In 1904 the American colonial government bought the friar lands, including those in Rizal, Bulacan, Isabela and Cebu provinces, and sold these to Filipinos. The original Filipino buyers have since resold the lands. In Laguna these are being developed into subdivisions, or host malls and food and carmakers.

Controversy arose from the case of Manotok v Barque, in which the Manotok family defended its ownership of the 34-hectare Piedad Estate in Diliman, Quezon City, against false claimants Barque and Manahan. Martin Villarama had led eight majority justices in ruling that even the Manotok title is bogus because unsigned by one bureaucrat.

Leading seven justices in dissent, Carpio had pointed out that dozens of other titles were unsigned because the lands were not yet fully paid at the time of issuance. He exhorted the SC to heed the DENR’S 2005 remedial order disregarding the missing signature as not the fault of the buyers. He also warned of the disquieting of millions of lot titles in former friar lands nationwide.

The eight majority justices won only because Chief Justice Renato Corona reportedly voted twice. He first signed in assent above his name. He also signed for absent Justice Mariano del Castillo, who never joined the deliberations because recuperating from heart surgery.

The government lists 23 major friar lands. Lot owners or buyers in these areas were advised to keep abreast of developments.

*      *      *

Our people seek closure to such high crimes as General Garcia’s plundering, election rigging, the NBN-ZTE and Diwalwal-ZTE scams, NAIA-3 construction anomalies, and the near cession of territory to Moro separatists. Yet justice grinds too slow. Meanwhile, know the details, the perpetrators, and the whistleblowers of these and other big scams. Grab a copy of Exposés: Investigative Reporting for Clean Government.

 The compilation of my selected Gotcha columns is available at National Bookstore and Powerbooks.

*      *     *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

E-mail: [email protected].