Tupas bares discrepancies in Corona’s bank records, SALN

MANILA, Philippines–Chief Justice Renato Corona allegedly owned at least P31 million deposits in local bank accounts in 2010 but only declared P3.5 million cash in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN), the head of the prosecution team revealed on Monday.

Chief prosecutor and Iloilo Representative Niel Tupas Jr. made this disclosure at the resumption of the impeachment trial in the Senate when Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago asked if he had a total estimate of Corona’s deposit in peso accounts.

“For 2007 we discovered around P5 million or P7 million but in 2007 the cash that was declared in the SALN was only P2.7 million,” said Tupas.

“In 2010, we discovered P31 million in cash but the cash declared in the SALN was only P3.5 million,” he pointed out.

Santiago then asked the chief prosecutor what should be the proposed benchmark for peso accounts that would constitute betrayal of public trust.

“Ang tingin ko dito pag sobra sa dineklara sa SALN nya . Kasi ang dineklara naman nya ay P3.5 million (I think when the money was more than what he declared in his SALN. Because he only declared P3.5 million. Pag sobra dun (If it’s more than that), that would already constitute betrayal of public trust,” said Tupas.

When Santiago pressed him to give her a benchmark, the chief prosecutor said, “Yung napakita namin na P31 million, that would already a clear case of betrayal of public trust.”

But Santiago reminded Tupas of a saying that “those who come to court must come to court with clean hands.”

“Hindi ba tapat lahat tayo dito na mga participants sa impeachment court, suriin natin ang mga konsensya natin at mga budhi natin? Meron ba tayong P35 million lahat lahat? Pati itong mga tagapakinig sa gallery, may P35 million ba kayo sa bangko? May betrayal of public trust pala kayo pag ganun (Shouldn’t all of us participating in the impeachment court do a soul-searching too? Do we have P35 million each? Even the people in the gallery, do you have P35 million in a bank/banks? Is it tantamount to betrayal of public trust?” she asked.