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Day 18: Highlights of Corona impeachment trial at the Senate
Request to quash subpoena for Corona’s peso accounts denied
- The impeachment court denied the motion of the defense team to quash the subpoena for the peso bank accounts of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona. At the resumption of the trial, presiding officer and Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile reiterated the ruling of the court that the purpose of the subpoena is to find out if Corona has not included the deposits in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN).
- On Tuesday, the defense team had asked the court to quash the subpoenas for the bank records and documents from the Philippine Airlines (PAL) related to Corona's travels, as well as those for the executives of PAL, Bank of the Philippine Islands, and Philippine Savings Bank.
- The court did not release any ruling on the subpoena for PAL executives and records of Corona’s travels.
- Senator-judges Loren Legarda and Pia Cayetano expressed concerns about the court’s treatment of the alleged fake documents regarding Corona’s dollar accounts that the prosecution submitted to the Senate.
- Enrile said the court will “presume good faith” on the part of the prosecution and take up the issue at length when the documents are offered as testimonial evidence. He added that the senator-judges will tackle the explanation of the prosecution team about the documents in a caucus next week.
- Senator-judge Jinggoy Estrada grilled Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) Katipunan branch manager Anabelle Tiongson, a prosecution witness, regarding her family’s political affiliation with lead prosecutor Niel Tupas Jr. Estrada said Tiongson’s cousin was the running mate of Tupas’ brother in the gubernatorial race in Iloilo in 2010, and also served as vice governor when Tupas’ father served as Iloilo governor.
- Tiongson, who is being questioned about the possible leakage of bank documents, said she hails from Iloilo but does not know and had never seen the Tupases before because she is “not interested” in the political affairs of her relatives.
- Tupas also denied knowing Tiongson, saying the first time he saw her was when she took the witness stand Monday.
- Upon questioning by Estrada on how copies of Corona’s bank records that Tiongson had described as “fake” could have correctly identified the magistrate’s bank account, Tiongson said details such as account numbers could have come from other sources such as bank certifications and embassy documents.
- Despite Tiongson’s testimony, Estrada expressed the belief that the Corona bank record submitted by the prosecution is a “faithful reproduction of the original.”
- When asked by Senator Franklin Drilon to identify discrepancies in the copies of Corona’s bank records presented by the prosecution, Tiongson said the bank records actually used PSBank’s standard form, but some entries have been altered.
- Enrile ordered Tiongson to bring the logbook containing records of the persons who accessed their clients’ customer identification and specimen signature cards during the next hearing.
- The impeachment court ordered PSBank president Pascual Garcia III to bring the original copies of the allegedly fake bank documents of Corona’s dollar accounts. Enrile said this will prove the credibility of the witnesses, and in case the documents were forged, then the ones responsible shall be made to answer for it.
- When Garcia cited the TRO on the dollar accounts, senator-judges Enrile and Drilon said he can just cover the details such as the amounts in the records.
- Garcia testified that there were certain differences between their documents and the ones presented by the prosecution, such as highlighted text and some signatures in the originals that are not present in the records submitted to the impeachment court.
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