Roco was referring to Davide’s ruling the other day that the prosecution should prove that the P500 million in the Jose Velarde account was ill-gotten so that the testimony of surprise prosecution witness Clarissa Ocampo would not be stricken off the record.
In his radio program over dzBB, Roco said Davide’s ruling is still subject to a lot of debates. He said Sen. Franklin Drilon even read during the trial Section 2 of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, which states that assets of a public official that are grossly disproportionate to his income are deemed ill-gotten.
Roco and Sen. Renato Cayetano both agreed with Drilon that the burden of proof lies in the government official.
Davide, however, contended that in the impeachment trial, the burden of proof lies with the prosecution, not with the defense. He added that the presumption of guilt in the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act is still subject to proof.
Ocampo, senior vice president and trust officer of Equitable-PCIBank, testified that the President signed a P500-million investment management agreement using the name Jose Velarde.
She said the President also signed the signature specimen card using the same alias.
Private prosecutor Mario Bautista said that the President filed a statement of assets and liabilities for 1999 with a net worth of only P35 million. He said that there is no way the President could accumulate that much in just a few months except if the assets are ill-gotten. He also cited documents presented by Ocampo showing that "Jose Velarde" had a deposit of P1.2 billion in just one account with Equitable-PCIBank.
The prosecution, however, is not at all worried that Ocampo’s testimony would go for naught because of Davide’s directive.
Makati Rep. Joker Arroyo and Leyte Rep. Sergio Apostol appeared confident of giving the needed proof that the P500 million is ill-gotten.
"We can easily do that. That is not a problem at all," an exultant Arroyo said after Ocampo’s testimony.
Arroyo said that most of the evidence they will present are documentary.
"We may need only a few persons to testify for us in this regard," he said.
The defense said that the Jose Velarde account has no bearing at all with Article 2 (graft and corruption) of the Articles of Impeachment filed by the House of Representatives with the Senate. They said that the charges in Article 2 did not mention the Jose Velarde account at all.
They added that the agreement was signed on Feb. 4, 2000, while the statement of assets and liabilities of the President was for 1999. They argued that because of this, what was signed in February no longer relates to Article 2. - Efren Danao