PSBank president Garcia confirms AMLC audit targeted Corona account

MANILA, Philippines—Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) president Pascual Garcia III confirmed that the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) conducted an audit on the PSBank from September, 2010 to November, 2010 targeting, among others, the account of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

“I believe a particular deposit account was targeted in the audit. I believe the AMLC looked at the accounts that need to be reported, one of these was an account in Katipunan, the account of Chief Justice Corona,” Garcia said.

However, Garcia said AMLC’s visit to the bank is normal.

“They visit the bank actually to verify if we are adopting the process that they require to report transactions of P500,000 and up,” Garcia said.

Senate President and Presiding Officer Juan Ponce Enrile grilled Garcia to determine if the document related to the bank records of the Chief Justice was leaked by the bank officials or the AMLC.

Enrile asked if the AMLC was able to scrutinize piece by piece the document about Corona’s account. Garcia said he only remembered that AMLC examined the signature card because it made a comment that it was not indicated there that the Chief Justice was classified as “politically exposed people.”

But Garcia clarified the documents were never surrendered to AMLC.

“It was always in control of the bank,” he said.

Garcia brought the signature card of the Chief Justice to the impeachment court. It will be subject of comparison to the copy attached by the prosecution team to its supplemental request for subpoena.

“There are many people who handled the records of the Chief Justice from the people of the Katipunan branch. None other could have possibly brought out that document,” Enrile said.

The prosecution team explained in earlier hearings that the document they have attached in their supplemental request for subpoena was given by a “small lady” to Oriental Mindoro Representative Reynaldo Umali. The same copy of document was given to Quezon City Representative Jorge Banal when it was left at the gate of his house last month.