PSBank head: AMLC probed Corona accounts

MANILA, Philippines - Presiding Senator-Judge Juan Ponce Enrile this afternoon asked bank executives for the possible source of leaked documents pertaining to the bank accounts of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

At the start of day 20 of the impeachment trial of the high magistrate, Enrile grilled Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank)-Katipunan branch manager Annabelle Tiongson on how the bank documents ended at the bank's head office.

Tiongson again recalled that on January 31 this year, Quezon City Rep. Jorge Banal visited her office, asking her if she could help him on her personal capacity.

"And then he asked me about the raffles but I told him I cannot dislose anything to him," she said.

She also narrated how the legislator, who corrected her that he is no longer a councilor but a congressman, partly showed her a photocopied document which seemed to be similar to the signature forms being issued by the bank.

"I was shocked that I was looking at a signature specimen," Tiongson said.

After Banal left, Tiongson said she immediately rang up her superiors who immediately ordered her to hand over the documents regarding Corona's bank accounts to the head office.

Disturbed at what she saw, she told the impeachment court that she instructed the control officer of the bank to check at the vault if the original documents were still there.

"I asked the control officer to check if the original copy is still in the bank vault," she said.

For his part, PSbank president Pascual Garcia III said he personally instructed one of his people to get the Corona bank documents from the Katipunan branch.

"After receiving the documents, I put it in my personal cabinet with lock and key... They stayed in my cabinet until subpoenas were issued," Garcia said.

Upon prodding of Enrile, Garcia said the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) conducted a random examination on bank documents sometime September 2010.

"The audit targetted some accounts to be reported, one of them belonged to the Chief Justice," he added, noting that AMLC requires reporting of transactions from P500,000 and higher.

Garcia said bank officials have put a notation or mark, classifying the bank account of Corona as politically-expposed person or PEP.

At this point, Enrile ordered Garcia to submit the names of the AMLC examiners who did the audit on the bank accounts of Corona.

Garcia also noted some of the differences on the photocopied bank document allegedly of Corona and the certified copy from PSbank.

"Some details like the date of photocopied document maybe superimposed," he said, comparing with the bank's certified copy.