Corona lawyers mull case over leakage of bank documents

MANILA, Philippines – Defense lawyers of Chief Justice Renato Corona said they have yet to determine if they would pursue a case outside of the impeachment court against those responsible for the falsification or leakage of bank accounts under Corona’s name.

Salvador said that they could not prevent the impeachment court from looking into whether the document was authentic or not because it would be the basis for their decision on the impeachment case.

“It is true that they can investigate, but they cannot impose penalties on those [responsible],” Salvador said.

He said that whoever was responsible could face a criminal charge with a penalty of imprisonment but it would have to be done in a different forum.

Lawyer Rico Paolo Quicho said that “we are also seriously considering what are the legal remedies of the chief justice once we have found out [if] this document [was fake or authentic.]”

The photocopy of bank documents in the name of Corona from Philippines Savings Bank (PSBank) were allegedly handed to Representative Reynaldo Umali by a “small lady” and were used by the prosecution team as basis for a request to subpoena the bank account records and the officers of PSBank.

PSBank president Pascual Garcia and Katipunan branch manager Annabelle Tiongson said in their testimony that the documents were fake, prompting the senator-judges to question the prosecution on how they obtained it.

Malacanang, through spokesman Edwin Lacierda, announced that the documents were authentic. The defense panel said that they were shocked because Lacierda was not a participant in the trial.