Prosecution says Rep. Umali should not be punished

MANILA, Philippines—Don’t shoot the messenger.

The prosecution team said Wednesday that Oriental Mindoro Representative Reynaldo Umali, who was handed allegedly fake bank-account opening documents in the name of Chief Justice Renato Corona by an unidentified “small lady,” should not be punished.

The document was submitted by the prosecution team as basis for a subpoena requesting Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) account records of Corona and the PSBank officials.

PSBank president Pascual Garcia and PSBank Katipunan branch manager Annabelle Tiongson had testified that the document did not come from their bank and that it was fake, prompting a few senators to suggest holding the prosecutors liable for not verifying the information before submitting it to the impeachment court.

“We cannot just keep concentrating on the whistle-blower and punishing the whistle-blower,” Marikina Representative Romero Quimbo said in a press briefing after Wednesday’s trial where the witnesses were questioned extensively regarding the authenticity of the document.

“Somebody took a risk to bring out these documents so that we could find out and the people could find out that we have a chief justice who has been hiding money and not declaring in his SALN (statement of assets, liabilities and net worth),” Quimbo said.

Umali had maintained that he did not remember where exactly the document was handed to him within the senate building. The impeachment court had conducted an investigation into the matter by reviewing the closed circuit television (CCTV) system and could not find the “small lady” that handed Umali the documents. Quimbo, however, said that the CCTV cameras do not cover the entire building and that there were places that were full of people.

“Wherever that person is, that person has taken that risk,” Quimbo said.

“Are we going to persecute that person who revealed the information when there is a much higher moral obligation and a much higher moral issue here pertaining to the impeachment?” Quimbo said.