PSBank witnesses could have saved themselves from ‘grilling,’ prosecution says

MANILA, Philippines—If the Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) had simply cooperated with the impeachment tribunal and produced the documents requested, PSBank president Pascual Garcia and Katipunan branch manager Annabelle Tiongson would not be suffering the grilling of the senator-judges, the prosecution team said Wednesday.

“Had they just cooperated and had they just followed the writings of the law, and saw that they have the moral obligation to this impeachment proceeding, they would have been long gone. Instead they are continually being questioned and grilled,” Marikina Representative Romero Quimbo said.

Quimbo added that they would not be criminally liable of violating the bank secrecy law because of the “justifying circumstance” indicated in Article 11 of the Revised Penal Code.

He recalled his experience during the impeachment trial of former President Joseph Estrada where he was working in the law office that represented Clarissa Ocampo of Equitable-PCI Bank.

He said the board of directors of the bank “made a categorical decision” that they would “volunteer the information” because it was already suffering from a bank run even before Ocampo testified.

“The bank was already bleeding because of the constant accusation that it was being used to protect a public official who was keeping money under [the] bogus name Jose Velarde,” Quimbo said.

He said it was not true that the bank run only occurred after Ocampo testified in the trial about the bank accounts of Estrada.

Quimbo said that the bank “revamped the board [of directors], the old owner was removed and a new one came in, and then they decided to ” reveal and cooperate,” Quimbo said.

“This is the same appeal that we gave to the PSBank when all this started,” Quimbo said.