Defense: Corona, wife did not accept posh Makati condo until 2009

The defense camp in the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona on Tuesday tried to shed light on why a posh condominium unit in Makati City appeared in Corona's Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs) seven years after he and his wife bought it. The defense presented Carmina Cruz, the customer relations head of Alveo Land who said the Corona couple did not immediately formally accept the unit they bought in The Columns in 2003. Alveo Land is the developer of The Columns. During the day's trial, Cruz read a June 7, 2008 letter from Mrs. Corona saying that “there was no acceptance yet of the unit” at that time.   Defense lawyer Jose Roy III said the acceptance of the condominium unit was “prohibited” by some “defects” on the property. He said the couple only accepted the unit in October 2009—the reason why it was not reflected in Corona's SALN until 2010. The prosecution team, however, asserted that once the deed of sale is executed, the property should be deemed accepted by the buyer and later on declared in his or her SALN.   Corona is currently being tried at the Senate for betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of Constitution for alleged inaccuracies in his SALN. Prosecutor Winston Ginez said Cruz’s testimony on the couple's acceptance is “irrelevant” and insisted that the condominium unit should have been declared by Corona on the year it was bought.   “For the prosecution, what is the important is that the sale was made. Acceptance is irrelevant as far as the prosecution is concerned,” Ginez said.   Cruz was temporarily discharged from the Senate proceedings and was asked to return on Wednesday to bring documents related to the acceptance and the supposed defects of the condominium unit. Meanwhile, two senator-judges said that the amount of the condominium unit should have appeared immediately in Corona’s SALN in place of the actual unit. Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, the presiding officer in the trial, said that the asset should not have totally disappeared from Corona's SALN.   "The condominium unit came into existence when it was constructed, but all along there was an asset that must be reflected in one's SALN whether it is in the form of a condominium... or a currency account with the number placed alongside with it," he said.   "There was an asset only that it passes from cash to a concrete thing known as a condominium unit. Whether we talk of pesos or centavos, there was an asset from the very beginning," Enrile added.   Sen. Sergio Osmena III said that an asset could have been declared as the amount with which the asset was bought for.   "That P3.5 million [payment] should have still been declared.  If not we have a David Copperfield thing.  Now you see, now you don't.  The condo is irrelevant, the value must appear," he said. — with Kimberly Jane Tan/KBK, GMA News