Manila: The impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona continued Wednesday with arguments focusing on whether the documents presented by the prosecution as evidence against the official is authentic or not.
Last Tuesday, Congressman Reynaldo Umali, a member of the House prosecution team trying to pin down Corona on committing impeachable offences came out with supposed proof that the highest judicial of the country has US dollar bank accounts.
The document, was supposedly passed on to Umali by what the lawmaker described as a “short lady,” on Tuesday. But on Wednesday, Senator Vicente Sotto III said security video recordings of the senate showed no individual who fitted the questioned individual’s description.
Sotto suspected that it was just a ruse by the opposition impeachment prosecutors to draw out the real individual behind the apparent pilferage of evidence.
On Tuesday, one of the witnesses for the defence said that the purported Corona bank records were “fake.” During the proceedings Wednesday, Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) Branch manager Annabelle Tiongson attested to the impeachment court that the record of the dollar deposits had been tampered with.
For his part, Ramon Esguerra, one of the defence lawyers of Corona, called on lawyers of the prosecution not to “foist falsehood,” to vilify the Supreme Court chief justice.
Crux
“It is a timely reminder to both parties to remain abiding to our oath as lawyers and officers of the court that we should not foist any falsehood upon the court, wittingly or recklessly,” Esguerra, a former justice undersecretary said.
The crux of the impeachment trial Wednesday was whether the documents provided by Umali through the “short lady” is authentic and whether it is admissible as evidence.
Senator Franklin Drilon said the evidence against Corona is admissible but other senators said otherwise.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, said that aside from the veracity of the purported bank documents containing dollar accounts of Corona, the Senate will also have to determine whether the manner the evidence was acquired was lawful.
He said that if it turns out that the prosecution had erred in getting the evidence, the House panel could be held accountable for their acts.
Live on television
Monitoring the developments on the impeachment trial had occupied much of the time of Filipinas as the trial is being conducted live on television.
President Benigno Aquino III had said the fight to impeach Corona the fight of every Filipino who aims to rid the country of corruption.
The political opposition on the hand said the President is just getting back at the Supreme Court for overturning a decision that would have given the head of state’s family, undisputable ownership of some 5,000 hectares of agrarian estate in Central Luzon’s Tarlac.
As for the ordinary Filipinos and the business sector, the case involving the dollar bank accounts of Corona is a case that could put the country’s bank secrecy laws to the test.
