Corona SALN 'absolutely damning': Quimbo
MANILA, Philippines (1st UPDATE) - A spokesman of the House prosecution panel believes Chief Justice Renato Corona's statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs) are "absolutely damning" in proving that he acquired ill-gotten wealth when he joined the Supreme Court.
Rep. Miro Quimbo said Corona's net worth did not change for 10 years before he joined the Supreme Court. He said that from a net worth of P7.9 million in 2002, Corona's net worth then tripled to P22 million by end-2010.
"This is very damning evidence insofar as the degree of honesty and integrity as far as the Chief Justice is concerned," he said in a press conference.
"How was he able to get all of these properties when in fact from 1992 to 2002... we were able to trace his income. It never changed for 10 years. It even went down," he said.
Quimbo said the House prosecution is eyeing the opening of Corona family bank deposits to see how he acquired his assets. He noted that Corona sold properties to his children for P18 million.
"Certainly that is a step that is seriously being looked at partly since we have an interplay within the family of selling properties that have not been declared in the SALN by virtue of evidence that we have seen," he told ABS-CBN News Channel.
"Necessarily, we need to look at how these purchases were made. There have to be bank cheques and transfers of titles and the like. These are essential things to prove ill-gotten and unexplained wealth," he said.
Bellagio property worth only P6.8M?
Quimbo said Corona's SALN also raises questions about his purchase of the penthouse unit of The Bellagio in The Fort, Taguig City. The unit is reportedly worth P14.5 million.
"In 2010, he admitted he bought the Bellagio property for P14.5 million. Even that price is doubtful as far as we are concerned. A penthouse in that area should be more than P20 million," he said.
The spokesman said that while Corona enumerated several properties in his 2010 SALN, not a single one is worth P14.5 million.
"You don't see a single property here worth P14.5 million. Not a single one. Where is Bellagio worth P14 million which he himself admitted? So if you say the Bellagio is worth P6.8 million as indicated here, where did the P9 million go?"
Quimbo said the Corona SALN is "damning" because it does not jibe with the deed of sale of the Bellagio property.
"The deed of sale says its P14.5 million. It's already a matter of public record. That is why I am certain that this is absolutely damning. The SALN is a matter that you put under oath. If you lie about the price or the value of it by such a huge disparity, then you have lied under oath. If you have a Chief Justice who does not tell the truth under oath, what else has he not told the truth about? These are questions we are raising," he said.
Defense tried to block evidence
Rep. Erin Tañada said the SALNs are crucial in showing that there are discrepancies in Corona's declared assets. He said the SALNs will be compared with the deeds of sale and the titles of real estate properties allegedly owned by the Corona family.
"They tried everything to stop this from coming out...We want the truth. Is everything in the SALN true?" he said.
Quimbo said the House prosecution team is also studying its options with regards to Supreme Court Clerk of Court Enriqueta Vidal. He noted Vidal told prosecutors that she did not bring Corona's SALNs to the impeachment court but later backtracked and said she had brought them.
"It was contemptible on the part of the Clerk of Court...A patent disregard for the rules and attempt at dishonesty," he added.
Vidal was compelled to submit Corona's SALNs to the Senate impeachment court on the orders of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile. Before giving them up, she asked the court if she could be allowed to get permission first from the Supreme Court to release the SALN.
Supreme Court Spokesman Jose Midas Marquez later announced that Corona had given permission to release his SALN, and that Vidal will not be reprimanded.
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while our neighboring ASEAN countries are busy discussing about their respective economies, the philippine government is too busy in their work to impeach the head of the supreme court perceived by the boy in the palace as an obstruction to his daang matuwid. this is despite that the global economy is in the midst of double-dip recession.
just recently, rounds of oil increase bothered the transport sector. the transport sector is asking an increase in fares due to unabated increase in the price of imported oil. late last year, maynilad announced an increase in water rates. butch abad last year announced that noy's govt is considering to introduce new taxes. the peso devalued almost everyday threatening to widen poverty in our country. our quarterly gdp is continuing is downward trend that recently recorded 3.2 gdp a far cry from our neighboring countries gdp that also suffered from global economic crisis. indonesia for example got 6.5 percent, while vietnam and singapore got 6.1 and malaysia recorded 5.8 gdp.
philippines under noy's watch was tagged as one of the world’s mostly unfree countries in the 2012 Index of Economic Freedom published by Wall Street journal.
it was also last year that the philippines was one of the countries who got the lowest investment in ASIA. the country was even declared as the worse country for investors in east of ASIA. according to a survey firm, self rated poverty is high despite of the 21 billion budget for govt. dole out campaign known as CCT.
the world bank lowered our growth projection this year. our mediocre growth caused our economy to lose momentum not to mention opportunities. prices of basic commodities are going up, even NFA and commercial rice are up since this govt. took office. the philippines also ranked poor dropping two notches in the world
competitiveness ranking. the country continues to rank poor in terms of infrastructure. this can be attributed to govt's much vaunted PPP that up until now, doesn't have a single project currently implemented. this govt. also failed to attract foreign investors to fund various govt. projects (ODA) due to unjustified cancellations of projects signed by the previous admin. this resulted to loose of trust and confidence on the part of foreign investors. the investments pledges (amounting to 1 billion dollar) that pnoy bragged about during his tour around the world still has nothing to show off.
last year, we've been witness to the president's tirades against the chief justice renato corona. this was done during the forum organized by no less than the supreme court. president aquino was expected to discuss cooperation. however, nothing is heard about the aforesaid subject, what the public saw was an enraged aquino who's obviously cannot contain his rage against the chief justice. the members of the judiciary witnessed a mad and foul-tongued chief executive berating the chief justice. inspite of unfavorable comments regarding the president's ill-timed display of despicable behavior, the incident repeated in several occasions. a loosened maverick is in full display.
then came in the decision of the supreme court voting unanimously ordering HLI (cojuangco-aquino family) to distribute the hacienda to poor farmers of luisita. quickly after the aforesaid ruling of the SC, noynoy and his prostituted allies in congress met in a restaurant and device a plan to impeach the chief justice. speaker belmonte was assigned to ensure getting the right numbers to impeach the CJ in congress. while tupaz and the rest will ensure that the filing of the impeachment case would be done immediately.
on several occasions, belmonte confirmed in his interviews that noynoy texted him thanking him for a job well done. this happened after the rail-roaded impeachment reached the senate. the malacanan mouthpieces including lacierda was even quoted using the word "we" when referring to the house prosecution panel. Llmas who also doesn't have business with corona's impeachment was also vocal about the CJ's impeachment. what happened to separation of powers? ask if the palace is meddling with the congress action to impeach the CJ, malacanan spin doctors are quick to deny it and claimed that it was an independent move on the part of congress. however, recently, it was no less than pnoy that confirmed that corona's impeachment was the handiwork of his political party LP. he even thanked them and his prostituted allies and claimed that it is the brightest moment of the party. this proves that noynoy and his mouthpieces / lapdogs are lying to their teeth in claiming that the palace has got nothing to do with corona's impeachment.
the articles of impeachment was railroaded despite the fact that the constitutional requirement of verification wasn't met. even after the senate already presided as an impeachment court, the political machination remained unabated. lead prosecutor tupaz jr. called for a press conference and presented evidences before the public regarding corona's allege list properties of corona. however, as the hearing of the impeachment case progress, it was proven that their accusation (article 2) of corona's non-disclosure of SALN wasn't even true. it has been proven that the CJ regularly files his SALN and is available in SC and even in malacanan. since the prosecution panel's accusation in article 2 can be easily proven wrong, the are now trying to digress the issue to corona's allege ill-gotten wealth. however, this issue has been questioned the the defense claiming the issue was not even included in article two which only alleges corona from non-filing of SALN. the defense further argued that any evidence arising from such claim is no longer admissible following the rules of evidence. during the senate hearing, the prosecution failed to show certified true copies of titles and properties insofar as CJ's SALN is concerned. they also failed to show individuals that will testify on the signatures and certify relevant documents, yet the prosecution has the nerve to expose allege "evidence" with questionable validity to the public.
the issue of admissibility of the evidence presented by the prosecution panel was left hanging since JPE decided that the impeachment court will rule on it once the evidence were formally presented. during the last hearing, the prosecution claimed that corona's assets have increased by 8 million from the period of 2009 - 2010. however, they failed to mention that corona gained 8 million from the proceeds of the sale during 2010. this will justify the increase of 8 million. most of the public officials share an upward trend in so far as their SALN is concerned. even pnoy's SALN have increased ever since he joined the government. i personally do not know a public official who's assets have decreased after joining public office.
we can now officially say that our legislators metamorphosed into a lynching mob of noynoy. the sad part about this is that people are being witness to the
usurpation of our democracy perpetrated by a leader who's acting like a tyrant. this is creeping martial law and the stamp pad congress will submit to pnoy's will because the executive has the power of purse. the congress is able to railroad the impeachment against corona while proposed laws languish for decades in congress. this govt. can't even pass the FOI bill that has been languishing in the back-burner for 15 years. is pnoy afraid that it can be used against him and his prostituted allies in congress (79 of them have pending graft charges in the office of the ombudsman)? for the mean time, let us wait for another round of cock and bull story coming from the prostituted allies of pnoy disseminated by yellow media including that giant media conglomerate that has to thank cory for surrendering MERALCO to their family.