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Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Corona's true colors revealed in BGEI row

By Ernesto Hilario / About Town

THE carefully cultivated public image of Chief Justice Renato Corona is that of someone who is deeply religious, devoted to his wife and family, with solid academic credentials, and given his training and experience as a lawyer, richly deserves to occupy the highest judicial post.

Until, of course, 188 congressmen voted last December to impeach him for culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust and graft and corruption.

Since then, Corona’s public persona has suffered one beating after another, with the latest survey showing that Corona is the least trusted among the country’s top five public officials with a negative 15 approval rating.

The impeachment trial, now on its fourth week, has unearthed damaging revelations against the Chief Justice, particularly with regard to Article 2 which has to do with his alleged ill-gotten wealth.

So far, witnesses at the trial have confirmed that Corona owns a number of high-end real-estate properties as well as fat bank deposits which were all misdeclared or undervalued in his Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth (SALN).

The latest bombshell against Corona last week was that Corona gave his wife Cristina authority to withdraw a total of P32.6 million from three accounts at PSBank’s Katipunan branch on the very same day that he was impeached by Congress on December 12 last year.

It is not clear if the P32.6 million has been deposited elsewhere. But Corona’s lawyers are saying that this is part of the P34.7 million Cristina received in 2001 as payment for the expropriation of a property in Sampaloc owned by her family’s corporation, Basa-Guidote Enterprises Inc. (BGEI).

Mrs. Corona, it is said, placed the money in different peso time deposits so it could earn interest.

So what’s the story behind BGEI? How come it is now an interesting sideshow in the impeachment trial?

BGEI was incorporated on May 30, 1961, by members of the Basa-Guidote family, mainly the parents and siblings/in-laws of Cristina Roco-Corona. Some 70 percent of the shares were in the name of Rosario Basa, the mother of the Basa siblings. When she passed away in the 1970s, Rosario’s will was subjected to probate proceedings that are still pending.

Cristina’s parents, Vicente Roco and Asuncion Basa-Roco, served as the company president and board secretary, respectively, from 1963 onward. At their instance, with the death of Rosario, Cristina was named as administrator of her estate, thus acquiring de facto control over BGEI.

Cristina was responsible for collecting rents and other income of the company. In 1989, her uncle Jose Ma. Basa III sought an accounting of the firm’s income. When Cristina failed to comply, Jose Ma. III obtained the shares of his other siblings and relatives and consolidated the majority stock ownership in BGEI for himself. This started an intracorporate dispute for control of BGEI.

Cristina, however, through the intercession of her husband Renato, who in 1992 was already assistant executive secretary for legal affairs and head of the Malacañang Legal Office, managed to get the SEC to withhold any action on the dispute pending resolution of the true ownership of BGEI. Cristina, thus, continued to exercise de facto control over BGEI despite owning only 10 percent of the shares inherited from her mother.

In 1995 Jose Ma. III filed a complaint for estafa against Cristina before the city prosecutor of Manila. He then caused the publication of a notice in four newspapers informing the public that a case for estafa had been filed against Cristina.

Apparently using the influence of her husband who was already a high Malacañang official, Cristina managed to get the estafa case against her dismissed. She then filed four libel cases against Jose Ma. III and her other relatives, alleging they had conspired to smear her reputation by causing the publication of the notices.

During the trial for the libel charge, it is said that then-Secretary Corona himself would attend, flanked by his security aides, and sit on the front row. Renato and Cristina would also be frequently seen entering the private chambers of the presiding judge before hearings. He allegedly even threatened to block the promotion of both the presiding judge and the trial prosecutor if they did not deliver a verdict of conviction against Cristina’s relatives. Eventually, the court came out with a judgment convicting Jose Ma. III and his wife, Randy.

With her relatives out of the way, Cristina began to exercise full control over BGEI. In 2001, again with the help of Renato who at that time was already presidential chief of staff, she arranged the sale of a BGEI-owned property on Bustillos Street in Manila to the city government for P34 million. This price was much higher than the price paid by the city for adjoining lots.

But the story does not end there.

Pedro Aguilon, then 83 years old, executed an affidavit on April 22, 1998, where he accused Corona of pointing a gun at his face on January 2, 1997.

Aguilon had been the caretaker since 1947 of the property on Lepanto Street in Manila owned by Rosario Basa. When he contracted tuberculosis, Rosario told him to move to another house so he would not infect the others in the compound. Although hesitant, Aguilon said, he agreed to live in Bustillos.

Aguilon narrated that on January 2, 1997, between 8 and 9 a.m., the house in Bustillos he was occupying was demolished without any prior notice. When he arrived on Bustillos between 1 and 2 p.m., he said, the house was gone and his belongings were all in disarray. Between 7 and 8 in the evening, when he went to the Lepanto compound, he was confronted by Renato and Cristina who were very angry and asked in a loud voice why he did not use the lock for the iron gate that they left in Bustillos. When he answered that the lock did not fit the gate, he said, Renato pointed a gun at his face and shouted, “Baka gusto mong pasabugin kita.”

Aguilon said another caretaker named Librada and her child witnessed Renato point a gun in his face.

Aguilon said he decided to go to the barangay and narrate the maltreatment and abuse he suffered in the hands of the spouses Renato and Cristina because he felt it would be useless to file a case against them, and he was very afraid that Renato would come back and kill him.

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