Corona trial seen over by March 23

MANILA, Philippines -  The Senate impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona will most likely be finished by March 23, lead prosecutor Rep. Niel Tupas Jr. said yesterday.

“We hope to finish the trial before our Holy Week adjournment. By then, we also hope that the Senate would have already made a decision,” he said in a television interview.

The Senate and the House of Representatives will go on a five-week Lenten break starting in the third week of March. They are supposed to hold sessions until March 23, which is a Friday, but the Senate does not meet on Fridays and is conducting impeachment trials only from Monday to Thursday. The House, on the other hand, convenes only from Monday to Wednesday.

Tupas said the prosecution is aiming to rest its case “within a reasonable period of time” so that Corona’s lawyers could present their defense.

“To expedite the trial, we will trim down our list of witnesses, but a lot will really depend on the defense team. If they object to documents that they subsequently adopt as part of their evidence like the SALN (statement of assets, liabilities and net worth) of the Chief Justice, and if they resort to technicalities, that will greatly delay the proceedings,” he said.

He expressed confidence that on the basis alone of the alleged inaccuracies in Corona’s SALNs and his late disclosure of certain assets, the Senate would convict the Chief Justice of betraying public trust and would remove him from office.

“Declaring the Bonifacio Ridge (Global City, Taguig) and The Columns (Ayala Avenue, Makati) condo units in his SALN five years to six years after they were acquired is not belated reporting, as CJ Corona’s lawyers claim. It is more of dishonest reporting,” he said.

He said when the two condos and the Bellagio 1 penthouse (also in Bonifacio Global City) were reported in Corona’s 2010 SALN, they were “grossly undervalued.”

“The Bellagio penthouse, for instance, which was acquired for P14.5 million in December 2009 as evidenced by the deed of sale, was declared at P6.8 million only,” he said.

Tupas pointed out that there is another dimension in the SALN issue that senator-judges would have to consider when they weigh the evidence – the matter of ill-gotten wealth.

He said under the law, a public official is deemed to have acquired an ill-gotten asset when the value of such asset is grossly disproportionate to his income.

He said the prosecution has established that Corona and his wife Cristina had a combined gross income of about P5 million earned between 2002 and 2010.

“That amount is just a fraction of the cost of their acquisitions. The Bellagio penthouse alone cost P14.5 million,” he said.

Quezon Rep. Erin Tañada, a prosecution spokesman, said as far as prosecutors and the 188 congressmen who impeached the Chief Justice are concerned, Corona was dishonest in declaring his properties in his SALN.

He said the prosecution has shown that the Chief Justice did not declare luxurious Bonifacio Global City and Makati condominium units and the Burgundy Plaza condo in Quezon City in his SALN for the years he and his wife acquired them.

The Bellagio 1 penthouse was bought in December 2009, The Columns unit in 2004 and the Bonifacio Ridge condo in 2005 but they were declared only in 2010, he pointed out.

He said the Burgundy unit was fully paid in 2000 but Corona declared it only in 2003.

“There is repeated concealment of the acquired properties. That is for us dishonesty and a betrayal of public trust, which is an impeachable offense, for which the Chief Justice should be convicted,” Tañada stressed.

In a television interview, former justice undersecretary Ramon Esguerra, a member of Corona’s defense team, said of the alleged untruthful and late entries in his client’s SALN: “They say there are inaccuracies in the SALN entries. That’s fine with us. The basic fact remains that there was filing.”

He said the condominium units Corona and his wife had acquired were “disclosed, although belatedly.”

He was apparently referring to the declaration of the assets in the chief magistrate’s 2010 SALN, filed in April last year.

Prosecution spokesman Rep. Miro Quimbo of Marikina said it would have been acceptable and forgivable if Corona forgot to declare his assets for one year.

“But he did not declare them for five years, six years. It’s impossible for one who worked for a big bank and a big accounting firm to forget those properties, since they cost millions of pesos. Would you forget a P14.5-million condo penthouse? No, unless you intend to hide them,” he said.

Another prosecution spokesman, Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara, said those who wrote the Constitution included “betrayal of public trust” among impeachable offenses to make it easier for impeachable officials to be removed from office.

He said such officials need not commit “high crimes” but can be ousted for dishonesty or improper conduct.

He said betrayal of public trust was intended as a “catch-all” that could cover big and small offenses.

Meanwhile, the Movement 188 group of Corona impeachers warned lawyers of the Chief Justice yesterday to stop employing “squid tactics” against Tupas and other prosecutors.

Rep. Rodel Batocabe of the party-list group Ako Bicol, a member of the group, said they would be forced to expose the “illicit relationships” of some of Corona’s lawyers if the latter do not stop their foul attacks on the prosecution team.