Lead prosecutor bares discrepancies in Corona bank accounts and SALN

MANILA, Philippines–Chief Justice Renato Corona allegedly owned at least P31 million deposit in local bank accounts in 2010 but only declared P3.5 million cash in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) for the same year, the head of the prosecution team revealed on Monday.

Chief prosecutor and Iloilo Representative Niel Tupas Jr. made this disclosure at the resumption of the impeachment trial in the Senate in a reply to Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s question if he had a total estimate of Corona’s deposit in peso accounts.

“So far, for 2010, we discovered P31 million in bank deposits,” said Tupas, but pointed out that Corona declared only P3.5 million cash in his SALN for the same period.

For 2007, Tupas said the prosecution team discovered around P5 million to P7 million bank deposits of Corona but the latter only declared P2.7 million cash in his SALN.

The discrepancy between the bank deposits and Corona’s SALN, Tupas said, was a clear case of betrayal of public trust, one of the allegations in the impeachment complaint filed against Corona.