Palace: Focus on Corona, not Carpio assets

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Malacañang is not about to fall into what it says is a tactic to divert attention away from impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona, as it rejected calls for it to investigate Associate Justice Antonio Carpio for his alleged unexplained wealth.

The Palace said it was focused on Corona and his trial in the Senate impeachment court, which is to start on January 16.

“What we are concerned with right now is the issue on the leadership of Chief Justice Corona … The issue here is the alleged hidden wealth or ill-gotten wealth of Chief Justice Corona,” Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said.

One of the articles of impeachment against Corona concerns his failure to disclose his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN).

Lacierda said the Palace was not interested in looking into the assets of Carpio whom an unnamed senior Supreme Court official alleged was the owner of a penthouse in Avignon Tower in Salcedo Village, Makati City.

Lacierda thumbed down the proposal to investigate the assets of Carpio, believed to be the Palace’s choice to replace Corona, noting that the associate justice had already produced his SALN.

Prosecutors from the House of Representatives claimed that Corona owned a 303-square-meter penthouse with three parking slots in the posh The Bellagio I Tower, a 113-square-meter unit in Bonifacio Ridge, another condominium unit in Makati City, and a house and lot in Quezon City.

No sacred cow

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said over the weekend that Corona could not possibly afford the Bellagio penthouse with his government salary.

But Serafin Cuevas, counsel for Corona, said last week that his client would disprove claims that he had illicitly acquired properties.

Lacierda said people were free to release to the public any evidence against Carpio.

“He is in a position to defend himself. Let him defend himself … Nobody is a sacred cow in the judiciary,” Lacierda said of Carpio.

Worth P46 million

In a summary of his SALN that he furnished the anticorruption watchdog, Kaya Natin! Movement for Good Governance and Ethical Leadership, Carpio placed his net worth in 2010 at P46.3 million and liabilities of P75,000.

Carpio declined to comment on his purported ownership of a condominium unit in the Avignon Tower.

Carpio’s staff member, who asked not to be named, said the justice had directed them not to answer queries from the media concerning the multimillion-peso penthouse unit.

Inaccurate

A lawyer, who personally knows Carpio, said the report on Carpio’s alleged penthouse in Avignon Tower was very inaccurate.

“There is no condo unit in the Philippines with an area of 800 sqm. These facts can be easily verified by checking with the Condo Corp. Association,” said the lawyer, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to talk to the media about Carpio’s properties.

He said the report was “clearly a squid tactic to distract attention from Corona.”

Jose Midas Marquez, Supreme Court administrator and spokesperson, said Carpio had yet to inform him if he would issue a statement on the matter.

But he said “there was no need” for Carpio to answer as a public official like Corona the insinuations that he had acquired properties beyond his means.

Speculations

“These are all speculations. I hope all these speculations stop because it’s not doing the court any good,” Marquez said.

“I don’t think the justices have to react to this because these are all pure speculations and we don’t have to dignify them.”

He asked the media to refrain from making any conclusions about the justices’ wealth.

“We’re not sure if that condominium really belonged to him (Carpio) and if he had declared that in his SALN. If he had declared that, then I don’t see any problem with it,” Marquez said.

Diversionary tactic

Asked whether the proposal to investigate Carpio’s alleged unexplained wealth was a diversionary tactic, Lacierda said: “Yes it is.”

“The focus right now is on the impeachment of Chief Justice Corona. So all those who are trying to divert our attention to Justice Carpio, if you have any ground to file against him, then do so in the House of Representatives,” Lacierda said.

He reiterated his call for Corona to present his SALN so that the latter could settle the issue on his alleged hidden wealth.

Noting that the justices were expected soon to have an en banc session to discuss whether to disclose their SALNs, Lacierda said the Palace hoped that the high court would “reverse itself and decide to come out with their SALNs.”

“It’s not an unreasonable request in light of transparency and accountability,” he said.

The Supreme Court issued guidelines in 1989 allowing SALNs to be withheld from the public to protect judges from harassment.