MANILA, Philippines - House prosecutors insisted yesterday that the P34.7 million that Chief Justice Renato Corona’s wife Cristina received for her mother’s family corporation should have been reflected in the statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) of the Chief Justice.
“The Coronas received the money. They treated it as their own. In fact, they deposited it in their bank account,” deputy lead prosecutor Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas of Ilocos Norte said.
He said even if the Corona couple received the money in trust for the Basa-Guidote Enterprises, Inc. (BGEI), the family corporation of Mrs. Corona’s mother, it should have been declared in the SALN of the Chief Justice. He added that the rules of the Civil Service Commission on SALN filing require that money held in trust should be declared. The P34.7 million was the money paid by the Manila city government to BGEI when it expropriated its property in Sampaloc in 2001.
During Thursday’s trial, former Manila mayor Lito Atienza, a defense witness, testified that Mrs. Corona presented to him a 1987 certification from her mother authorizing her to deal on behalf of her family’s corporation.
He said he negotiated with the Coronas for the expropriation of BGEI’s property.
Mrs. Corona’s mother, Asuncion Basa Roco, was one of the original stockholders of BGEI and the former corporate secretary of the family firm.
Her sister, Flory Basa, who is a nun, is the only living original shareholder of the corporation.
In a recent interview, Sister Flory said she could not remember her family’s corporation approving a resolution authorizing her niece, Mrs. Corona, to act and decide for BGEI. Nor could she recall a resolution approving the grant to the Chief Justice of a “cash advance” amounting to P11 million.
The cash advance is reflected in Corona’s 2003 SALN.
She said of the P34.7 million: “The money is with them. If it is for BGEI, why is it not with us?”
Defense lawyers said they presented Atienza in connection with this SALN entry. They said they would present another witness to prove that Corona indeed obtained a P11-million cash advance from BGEI.
The P34.7-million Manila city government payment to BGEI and Corona’s bank accounts were the subject of a heated argument between Sen. Ralph Recto and chief defense counsel Serafin Cuevas.
Recto said Atienza’s testimony on the payment reminded him of the P31 million in bank deposits that the prosecution claims the Chief Justice did not declare and the P34 million he withdrew last Dec. 12, the day the House of Representatives impeached Corona.
He said as of Dec. 31, 2010, Corona had P7.148 million and P12.583 million in two accounts with Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) and over P12 million in an account with Bank of the Philippine Islands.
“If I look at the SALN of the Chief Justice as of Dec. 31, 2010, cash and investments amounted to P3.5 million,” he said.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, the presiding officer of Corona’s impeachment trial, agreed with Recto, saying, “This is the heart of the problem.”
Cuevas, however, told Recto that the bank accounts are “the evidence of the prosecution.”
“If you are asking our side, just kindly wait. We are not yet through. Ang aming depensa (Our defense) is this money, which allegedly were deposited in the dollar account or peso account, is merely held in trust by Chief Justice Corona, coming from the Basa-Guidote account, as well as the money sent to them by their children,” he said.
Recto said he would wait for the explanation of the defense on Corona’s undeclared bank deposits.
House prosecutors also claimed that Corona’s lawyers would have a hard time disproving allegations that his multimillion-peso bank deposits are not his and instead belong to BGEI.
PSBank officials earlier told the Senate impeachment court that Corona had P36.7 million in time deposits under three accounts, which he withdrew and closed on Dec. 12 or the day he was impeached by 188 congressmen.
Defense lawyers, however, said their client had to close the accounts because the money was not his but belonged to Cristina Corona’s company, the BGEI, which in 2001 earned P34 million after one of its properties was expropriated by the Manila city government.
Marikina City Rep. Romero Quimbo, spokesman for the prosecution, said the defense counsels “will attempt but will fail to destroy the prosecution’s theory that the Chief Justice was using the proceeds of said expropriation as a mere excuse to justify the source of the huge amount of money stashed in his secret bank accounts that he did not disclose in his SALN.”
“It will be an empty assertion on the part of the defense to say that there is a direct connection vis-a-vis the millions that were discovered belonging to Chief Justice (and the payment for the BGEI property) unless they will be able to prove how the money from the expropriation reached his accounts,” Quimbo said.
“The bigger question is, it is incumbent upon the defense to be able to systematically show the chain of custody on how this particular expropriation amount was given by the City of Manila, was deposited in one account, deposited in another account, went to this account, and eventually landed in the personal account of the Chief Justice,” he said.
He said the testimony of Atienza, who obtained the BGEI property located near Malacañang, apparently showed that there was no expropriation but a sale. “It was not an expropriation by the admission of their own witness (Atienza). It was a negotiated sale and there were a number of questionable or irregularities that attended the transaction,” Quimbo said. – With Paolo Romero