‘Fake’ evidence confirms Corona bank accounts

While Chief Justice Renato Corona’s accusers cannot guarantee the authenticity of the documents concerning his local and foreign currency deposits, the testimonies of bank officials prove that the information in the documents is accurate.

Marikina Representative Romero Quimbo, the prosecution spokesman, stressed this on Tuesday in the course of saying that the prosecutors had no intention of misleading the Senate impeachment court when they attached the bank documents to their request for a subpoena.

Quimbo said the prosecution had actually advised the impeachment court that it could not “vouch for the authenticity” of the bank documents that, according to the Monday testimony of Annabelle Tiongson, the manager of Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) branch on Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City, were “fake” and did not come from her branch.

But Quimbo said the documents that were turned over to the prosecution by an anonymous source could “only come from the bank.”

“The best proof that it came from the bank is that the accounts precisely matched. The bank officials confirmed the existence of the accounts, that they were owned by the Chief Justice,” he said in a press briefing after yesterday’s trial.

Accounts exist

Quimbo said PSBank, particularly Tiongson, had “every incentive or motivation” to declare the documents fake because these could only have come from them.

He assailed the defense for saying that all evidence pertaining to Corona’s bank deposits that had been disclosed and admitted by PSBank should be cast aside for being the “fruit of a poisonous tree,” or inadmissible.

Quimbo pointed out that the existence of Corona’s bank accounts was confirmed by no less than PSBank president Pascual Garcia III and Tiongson herself.

He said both bank officers testified that Corona kept almost P20 million in two accounts alone with PSBank as of Dec. 31, 2010. The Chief Justice only declared cash worth P3.5 million in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) for the same year.

Corona’s lawyers had protested the prosecution’s marking of the documents from PSBank and Bank of the Philippine Island (BPI) as evidence, saying these were obtained illegally.

But Quimbo said the prosecution’s supplemental motion on a request for subpoena for the bank records stated with caution that it could not vouch for the authenticity of the documents, although these turned out to be true.

Quimbo said that from the start of the trial, the prosecutors had been transparent and forthright in the supplemental motion for subpoena they submitted to the impeachment court on February 3 in connection with Corona’s bank accounts.

But he agreed that whoever was responsible for the circulation of the copies of the Corona bank documents was in clear violation of the Bank Secrecy Law and should be prosecuted.

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