Senate photo

OMBUDSMAN Conchita Carpio-Morales said Tuesday her office may file a second impeachment case against Chief Justice Renato Corona should the magistrate be acquitted in the ongoing trial by the Senate.

“I don’t see any reason why there is no chance for me to file…if that is warranted,” the Ombudsman said when pressed by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago if she would exercise that power.

The Ombudsman Act vests in the Ombudsman disciplinary authority over all elected and appointive officials of government, except over officials who may be removed only by impeachment and over members of Congress and the judiciary. But his or her investigatory power is for the purpose of filing a verified complaint for impeachment.

Carpio-Morales, who was presented by the defense as a hostile witness, revealed in a Powerpoint presentation on Monday that Corona had about $12 million deposited in 82 bank accounts as of December 2011.

She said she based the figure on a 17-page document detailing Corona’s dollar deposit transactions furnished by the Anti-Money Laundering Council from whom she had sought help in probing charges of unexplained wealth filed by the group of former party-list Rep. Risa Hontiveros.

Corona is being tried by the Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, on allegations of betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution, including his supposed failure to fully disclose his assets in the annual Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth. There is a one-year ban on the filing of impeachment complaints.

Taking the witness stand again on Tuesday, Day 38 of the impeachment trial, Carpio-Morales was pointedly asked by Santiago if she would file a case on December, a year after the first impeachment case was filed by the House of Representatives, to which the Ombudsman answered yes.

“I must only abide by what the Ombudsman law provides,” she said.

She said it was also within the Ombudsman’s power to file civil forfeiture cases.

Santiago, however, assailed Carpio-Morales for acting “more powerful than the President” after obtaining confidential information from the AMLC on the chief justice’s dollar accounts in connection with the Ombudsman’s investigation.

Santiago said Carpio-Morales defied the rules set by law when told the AMLC to probe the alleged ill-gotten wealth of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

“Under the law, you have to go to a judge, you have to get an order from a judge to get the bank accounts… Di nya sinunod yun. At ipinipilit nya na may ganoon syang kapangyarihan (She didn’t follow that and insists that she is empowered to do so),” she said.

Santiago added, “Sa kanyang interpretation, walang limit ang kanyang powers. Ang sinasabi ko, ‘Of course not (Based on her interpretation, there is no limit to her powers. I say, ‘Of course not). Dahil magiging mas makapangyarihan pa sya sa Presidente o sa Senate President o sa Speaker of the House (Otherwise, she would be more powerful thatn the president, the Senate president or the Speaker of the House). She will be the most powerful person in the country!”

At one point, while questioning Carpio-Morales, Santiago lost her temper when the Ombudsman kept “arguing with the senator-judge” regarding her exercise of powers.

“You’re arguing with a senator-judge!” Santiago said.

“Mea culpa (my mistake),” Carpio-Morales quickly replied.

“Apology accepted,” Santiago said.

When asked about her heated exchange with the Ombudsman, Santiago revealed that the two of them are actually “friends” and are contemporaries from the University of the Philippines College of Law.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Carpio-Morales asserted that while the AMLC report may have been too technical for her, she understood it well before presenting it before the Senate impeachment court.

She was reacting to lead defense lawyer Serafin Cuevas’ insinuation that the 17-page AMLC report was “beyond her comprehension.”

“‘Beyond my competence yes, beyond my comprehension no,” a stern Carpio-Morales told Cuevas.

The Ombudsman admitted that she got the help of the Commission on Audit in interpreting some details of the AMLC report, but stressed that she was hands-on in preparing of the 25-slide PowerPoint presentation she showed the Senate on Monday.

“I asked (COA) to visualize (the information)…I was personally involved,” Carpio-Morales said.

Cuevas also asked Carpio-Morales whether she ascertained the accuracy and credibility of the AMLC report.

“Are the contents of that report are correct and in accordance with law? I wouldn’t know,” Carpio-Morales said, explaining it was beyond her means to verify the report.

But she added, “Again, I say the presumption is that they (AMLC) will provide me the right information.”

The prosecution’s Mario Bautista objected to Cuevas’ line of questioning and cited the Rules of Court that any report officially prepared by a government agency is ascertained as truthful and can be accepted as prima facie evidence.

Earlier, defense lawyer Jose Roy III said while he doesn’t question the authenticity of the AMLC report he doubts whether it gave the entire picture.

“I’m not sure, however, if what she presented is everything that AMLC reported. Secondly, this is obviously raw data. You’ve seen the documents; we cannot make heads or tails out of it. I’m sure when the Ombudsman received it, she didn’t know either,” he said.

When asked, however, whether the revelations of the Ombudsman was according to their plan, Roy said, “Did it go according to plan? Well, it went according to plan, but not ours.” 

The defense team admitted that they were caught off guard by the evidence presented by Carpio-Morales on Monday.

Defense team’s spokesperson Tranquil Salvador III also admitted that they weren’t expecting Carpio-Morales’s assertions in her presentation.

“Ang problema hindi namin sya na prisinta sa paraan na napaghandaan (The problem was we weren’t able to present it in the way we prepared it),” he said.

Roy asserted that the alleged 82 bank accounts owned by Corona was simply “mind-blogging” and couldn’t have been possible.

“Do you know of anyone with 82 bank accounts?” he said.

But what the defense was not surprised to find out, according to Roy, was how far the evidence against Corona would be unearthed, regardless if this was truthful or not.

“This case began without evidence,” Roy said. ”Now we are in a long fishing expedition to get evidence.”

Roy said defense lawyers met with Corona on the AMLC report “for a good part of the day” and the chief justice remains optimistic on how the trial is going on so far.

“When we parted ways he was in very high spirits,” Roy said adding that the magistrate is still keen on testifying before the Senate impeachment court “when the time is right.” 

The initial testimony of the Honorable Ombudsman is quite unfortunate, if not very malicious.

I don’t know how she came up with her own mathematical equation. She made a hodgepodge out of the accounts, making her numbers chaotic.

The number of accounts alone is at best ridiculous. Her PowerPoint diagram is a lantern of lies which only messed up her presentation, contrary to what some believe now as damning evidence.

Either she does not know what she is talking about, or is purposely misleading the impeachment court and the public.

Is she even privy to how the AMLC arrived at the bloated numbers? We will debunk all her bloated numbers.

And once she is proven wrong, I urge her to immediately resign from her post for allowing herself to be used by this administration and making a laughingstock of “government auditing.”

Indeed, this is another LRA hoax.

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS

TO those who follow the impeachment trial of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, Eulalio Diaz III, a classmate of President Aquino whom he appointed administrator of the Land Transportation Administration, bungled his job, big time, in releasing a list of 45 properties credited to Corona.

But if you look at it from the point of view of the Aquino administration’s crusade against Corona and his benefactor, Gloria Arroyo, Diaz did a great job.

Imagine, with a phone call from Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupaz, head of the prosecution panel, he produced the list as his Jan 10, 2012 letter to Tupaz indicated: “Pursuant to your official request for the information relative to real estate properties registered in the name of Renato Corona et al, please find enclosed herewith certified true copies of titles registered in their names.”

Diaz related that he employed a “name search” in the LRA data base. He said that it was not only Renato Corona’s name that he punched in. He also searched for real estate properties with the name of Cristina Roco Corona, Francis Vincent Corona, Charina Corona, Maria Carla Corona Castillo and Constantino Castillo III.

Properties in the name of former Quezon City Mayor Ismael Mathay and the National Housing Authority appeared in the search and Diaz included them in the list submitted to Tupaz, who attached the document submitted to the impeachment court for subpoena and released to media.

Never mind that the list also included titles of parking spaces. The longer the list, the better.

Never mind that the list has now been trimmed to 21. “Forty-five” has stuck in the public’s mind.

Sen. Joker Arroyo lamented the “cavalier” attitude of Diaz about the wrong information he released.

Some may dismiss Joker Arroyo’s lament. He is a certified ally of Gloria Arroyo and he is expected to vote for the acquittal of Corona.

But to the public which has to deal with the bureaucracy, we share the concern of lawyer Teddy Te posted in his Facebook wall.

Te said: Nothing beats going over each and every document personally before presenting it in court or at the impeachment trial. After listening to the LRA administrator being grilled about his certification that Renato Corona and/or his spouse had 45 titled properties on record, it became evident that the LRA administrator, who is expected to be official custodian of such records, never did this. The presumption of regularity of official functions, on which a good faith reliance that a certification from the official custodian may be placed, has been severely impaired.

“The damage he has done goes beyond the evident reputational and evidentiary damage his negligence has caused to the House case against Corona–it goes to the integrity of the record keeping of titles in an office which is tasked with precisely that.

“The LRA administrator ought not to wait, he should do the right thing (take the “tuwid na daan”), after completing his testimony at the impeachment trial by : (a) apologizing unreservedly publicly and in writing for his gross negligence (jury’s still out, pun intended, on the malice), and (b) resign irrevocably (he shouldn’t wait to be fired because he won’t be, coming as he does from that privileged set of PNoy friends that we are stuck with) in writing as well.”

Resign? Doesn’t Te know about the KKK (Kaklase, Kabarkada, Kabarilan), a privileged group of people in the Aquino administration?

Diaz, known to friends as “Galland”, was a classmate of the President like PAGCOR chairman Cristino Naguiat Jr, whom Aquino defended for enjoying the junket, with his wife, children, nanny and another PAGCOR official and his wife, financed by a casino that the government office is regulating.

Diaz is one of Aquino’s trusted friends. When Aquino was first elected as Tarlac representative in 1998, his first choice as legal counsel was Diaz. But the latter was not available so Aquino got Paquito Ochoa, another classmate who is now his executive secretary.

Diaz was taken to the cleaners by a number of the senator-judges. He suffered meekly the insults of Sen. Miriam Santiago: “I commend your ignorance.”

For that, Diaz will be richly rewarded.

Forty-seven percent of Filipinos think Supreme Court Chief Justice Corona is guilty of the charges filed against him while five percent believe he is innocent. Forty-three percent are ambivalent as regards his innocence or guilt.

Almost half of the Filipino population (47%) is of the view that Supreme Court Chief Justice Corona is guilty, with 33% saying he is probably guilty and 15% being certain about his guilt. Meanwhile, 43% cannot say whether the government official is guilty or not. Practically the same percentages across geographic areas and socio-economic classes either think the Chief Justice is guilty (37% to 52%) or express indecision on the matter (43% to 48%). An exception is Mindanao where 54% say the Supreme Court Chief Justice is guilty and significantly fewer residents (31%) are undecided on the matter. On the other hand, only 5% of Filipinos believe Supreme Court Chief Justice Corona is innocent of the charges filed against him, with 4% saying he is probably innocent and 1% saying he is definitely innocent.

According to 58% of Filipinos, their countrymen will accept and respect the Senate’s decision as regards the impeachment case of the Supreme Court Chief Justice, whether most of the people like it or not. This is the majority sentiment in every socio-economic class (53% to 63%) and almost all geographic areas (53% to 68%). The Visayas is the exception, with essentially the same percentages either sharing this view (40%) or saying that most Filipinos will accept and respect only the decision that they favor (41%). The latter view is articulated by 34% of Filipinos. Indecision on the matter is expressed by less than one in ten Filipinos (8%). Additionally, public opinion on the matter is generally the same regardless of whether Filipinos believe Supreme Court Chief Justice Corona is innocent or guilty.

For the rest of the survey, click here: http://pulseasia.com.ph/pulseasia/story.asp?ID=747