Senators grill LRA exec anew over inconsistencies in testimony

MANILA, Philippines – Senators found inconsistencies in the testimony of Land Registration Authority (LRA) administrator Eulalio Diaz III, who denied that he was “in cahoots”with the prosecution team when he produced a list of properties allegedly owned by Chief Justice Renato Corona that turned out to be inaccurate.

On Day 33 of the impeachment trial of Corona, senators continued to dress down the LRA chief for providing the prosecution with the list of 45 properties purportedly registered under the name of Corona and his relatives.

“Did you really make a mistake in transmitting that information to the prosecution or did you want to make it appear that you’re in cahoots with the prosecution panel to make it appear that Chief Justice Corona owns 45 properties?” Senate Pro Tempore Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada said during the impeachment trial on Wednesday.

“Of course your honor, I will not accept that I’m in cahoots with the prosecution team your honor,” said Diaz.

“But I can’t also readily accept that it was a mistake because from my point of view these are documents that they may use for their research and that was my tenor of my letter to them,” he said.

The letter Diaz was referring to was the two-page document containing the list of Corona properties, which he gave to chief prosecutor and Iloilo Representative Niel Tupas Jr.

“It was never my obligation to tell them [prosecution] what exactly the properties you want to preset,” Diaz added.

Before this, Senator Loren Legarda almost lost her temper on the witness because of different answers he gave to the senators.

When Legarda first asked the LRA chief how long it took him to prepare the list of properties, Diaz said, “Two to three days.”

But when Senate president and presiding officer Juan Ponce-Enrile asked, however, if he hastily released the unverified documents, the LRA chief said the documents were available because the media were also asking for the same information.

“Actually, the first documents that were first released were in my office because even before that, our friends in media were also asking for copies, although we did not release them,” Diaz said in Filipino in responding to Enrile.

“Available na? Bakit available? Wala naman sa request pero available na sa yong kamay? [There is no request but they are already in your hands]?” asked Enrile.

“Because ang mga media po ay humihingi na noon pa [Because the media have been asking even before],” said the witness.

“You know my friend, your story about the evidence being in your hands even before Attorney Tupas could ask for them isn’t believable,” said the Enrile.

“Ipaliwanag mo na lang para maklaro mo [Just explain so that you can clarify]. Hindi ka paniniwalaan e pag ganyan [We won’t believe you if you’re like that],” the Senate leader added.

At that point, Legarda stood up and pointed out the inconsistency in the witness’ testimony.

“Mr. President he answered me that it took him two to three days to come up with a two-page document using the search engine. Now he tells you that the documents were readily available because the media were asking for it. So it just causes more perplexity and confusion,” she said.

Senator Ferdinand “Bong-Bong” Marcos Jr. also stood up and agreed with Legarda’s observation.

“Attorney Diaz, your story is vague. Isn’t it possible that as you prepared the list, someone whispered to you that the list doesn’t matter. It is better PR so that our case against the Chief Justice will be stronger,” Marcos said.