Palace turns heat up under Corona

MANILA, Philippines—Malacañang on Saturday stepped up the pressure on Chief Justice Renato Corona to disclose his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN), claiming that his salary as a government official was not enough to enable him to pay for a luxury condominium unit worth more than P14 million.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

By Budget Secretary Florencio Abad’s reckoning, if an official does not earn enough to buy a multimillion-peso property—plus a few others, as alleged by the House prosecution panel in Corona’s impeachment trial— then the properties may have been acquired by other means.

“If it’s true that he owns not just The Bellagio penthouse but possibly other real properties in pricy locations and knowing that the income alone from government service will not afford the chief justice the ability to acquire those assets, a reasonable mind can only conclude that the chief justice may have other sources of income outside of government or that those properties may have been acquired some other way,” Abad said in a text message.

“That is why it becomes even more compelling for the chief justice to publicly disclose his SALN. Otherwise, inquiring minds will begin to speculate,” he said.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said earlier Saturday there was no way Corona could affort the Bellagio penthouse and other pieces of premium property on his government salary alone unless he had inherited a fortune or already owned vast property before he went into government service roughly 20 years ago.

The Palace officials made the comments after the publication of Corona’s SALNs from the years that he served in Malacañang, which placed his net worth at almost P15 million in 1992 and at P14 million in 2002. The Inquirer obtained the data from a source privy to the House prosecution panel’s evidence in Corona’s impeachment trial.

Abad said he had yet to see Coronas SALNs for 1992 and 2002 while Valte said the declarations should be in the records of the Office of the President. She said she would look into the records to see if the Palace had the same figures as published by the Inquirer.

Aquino administration officials and anti-Corona partisans have been harping on Corona’s failure to make public his SALN since joining the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court spokesperson Midas Marquez the justices have not published their SALNs since a 1992 court resolution restricting the release of the SALNs of justices and judges lest doing so “endanger, diminish or destroy their independence and objectivity in the performance of their judicial functions”.

Justices of the Supreme Court are obliged to submit documents concerning their assets and liabiities to the Clerk of Court every year. Since the 1992 resolution, parties requesting a copy of a judge’s or a justice’s SALN have to secure a court order.

Since the outcry for Corona to disclose his SALN, two Supreme Court justices have released details of their SALNs. Justices Antonio Carpio and Maria Lourdes Sereno gave summaries of their respective SALNs to Kaya Natin, one of the groups demanding that Corona produce his SALNs to show proof that he could afford to buy the Bellagio penthouse apartment.

House prosecutors are aiming to present Corona’s alleged ownership of expensive real estate as evidence of corruption in his impeachment trial to start a week from now in the Senate.

According to Valte, it was not be possible for one to afford a P14-million luxury condominum unit—let alone a few other pieces of premium property—while living on a government salary even for 20 years.

“Not unless it could be shown there was an inheritance while in service,” Valte told thje state-run radio dzRB.

Valte said having the means to buy a piece of property like Corona’s 300-square meter unit at The Bellagio in Bonifacio Global City would depend on how much property he already had before entering government service.

“If only on a government salary, it really wouldn’t be enough,” she said.

Originally posted at 12:33 p.m.