Deed of sale notarized by SGV lawyer, says Cristina Corona

Cristina Corona INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Chief Justice Renato Corona’s wife Cristina on Wednesday said the deed of sale of the property in Marikina City she sold to her husband’s second cousin in 1990 was notarized by a lawyer from an accounting firm based in Makati City.

The prosecution panel claims that the lawyer was not authorized to be a notary public.

“The notary public is Attorney Beth Mantoya who used to notarize the documents in [the accounting firm] SGV. When she resigned from SGV, she joined Romulo Mabanta Law Office which assigned her to Hong Kong for many years. She has since married a foreigner and last we heard she is now living in Switzerland with her husband,” Cristina said in a text message sent to reporters.

Cristina said the Marikina property was sold “through a broker who brought Demetrio Vicente to my house as her buyer.”

“Even if the buyer turned out to be a relative of my husband, we paid the broker’s fee because we did not sell it directly to him. Since we sold the property to him in 1990, we didn’t see him again until 2012 when I was told that the title of this property was still in my name,” she said.

Cristina said Vicente’s wife Lita was the first cousin of Kenny Morales, husband of Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, who according to Vicente, had been to his house.

Originally posted at 08:28 pm | Wednesday, March 14,  2012