Palace not keen on tracing Corona’s Malacañang moles

Malacañang is not keen on flushing out the supposed “kumpares” (friends) of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona inside the Palace, whose supposed tips prompted him to withdraw funds from his bank accounts last December. Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte belittled such claims by Corona, who she said had given “conflicting” statements on the matter. “The peanut butter gets stickier every day. Nag-iiba-iba ang sinasabi niya (His peanut-butter defense gets stickier by the day. He is issuing conflicting statements),” she said on government-run dzRB radio. Before the Senate impeachment court, Corona had claimed he withdrew funds from several bank accounts on the day he was impeached last Dec. 12, because he was tipped off by friends in Malacañang that he was about to be impeached and his funds would be frozen. But Valte claimed Corona gave “conflicting” statements about his supposed reasons for withdrawing his funds. She said that when Corona went on a media blitz earlier this year, he claimed he had fellow depositors at PS Bank telling him the bank manager was “talkative” about the contents of his bank deposits, prompting him to close his account. But in another interview, Valte said Corona claimed a Palace insider tipped him off that an impeachment complaint was in the offing. “Wala siyang sinabi about freezing his account. Moreover, she said that in the end, Corona’s bank accounts were never frozen, indicating what he got was wrong information. “Were his bank accounts ever frozen? The answer is no. Obviously he got wrong information,” she said. — LBG/HS, GMA News