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Monday, February 20, 2012

Fake documents seen enough to bar House panel from trial

SENATE CAUCUS TAKES UP PROSECUTION’S ALIBI
Fake documents seen enough to bar House panel from trial
By Angie M. Rosales

At the very least, the entire House prosecution panel should be barred from appearing before the Senate impeachment court if it will be proven that the bank documents used as attachments to subpoena the bank records of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona are indeed “fake,” Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, one of the impeachment court judges, said yesterday.

He gave this assessment but added that the issue on the documents being illegally acquired is a matter that should be submitted to a regular court for the filing of charges against those responsible.

“If it’s illegally acquired document, if there’s a violation of a law, that should already be brought before the proper agency where a case can be filed,” he said.

“The sanctions for the use of fake documents range from a mere warning, censure, reprimand, fine, to suspension from appearing before the court. Disbarment is not one of the penalties but for the sake of decency it is suggested that they don’t appear before the impeachment court anymore,” the senator explained.

“We (Senate, sitting as an impeachment court) we are supposed to (only) try the case of the Chief Justice, (whether he’s) guilty or not guilty (on any of the eight Articles of Impeachment) — that’s our duty, our focus only,” Pimentel, a lawyer by profession said.

“When it is not genuine, when it was not really executed by the people concerned, that is a fake document,” he added.

The prosecution’s written explanation ordered submitted last week by the presiding officer, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, is set to be taken up in a closed-door caucus today, shortly before the impeachment tribunal resumes the proceedings.

The matter will be discussed together with a motion to quash the subpoena issued to Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) Katipunan branch manager Annabelle Tiongson filed by the camp of Corona.

Tiongson and PSBank president Pascual Garcia III testified before the impeachment court and both reiterated that the alleged records on the bank accounts of Corona culled from their bank by some members of the prosecution were “spurious” or “fake.”

Pimentel shared the position earlier aired by fellow senator-judge, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago who said that the use of fake documents could be a ground for disbarment as shown in administrative cases filed with the Supreme Court.

“That’s about legal ethics, code of professional conduct. As an officer of the court, lawyers are absolutely prohibited to use or attach fake documents. Lawyers should know how to distinguish what is fake and what is genuine. If there’s a doubt on its authenticity, does it need to be attached? If these documents are proven fake, the prosecutors should be penalized,” he said.

Santiago, during Tuesday’s trial proceedings, said Canon 10 of the code of professional responsibility provides that “the lawyer shall not do any falsehood nor consent to the doing in court nor shall he mislead or allow the court to be misled by any artifice. It matters not that the trial court was not misled by respondent’s submission.”

“Even if that false document did not mislead the court, still the lawyer is liable because the burden to that be placed on the court whether the document is true or not, it is the duty of the lawyer who is introducing it. It matters not that the trial court was not misled by respondent’s submission. What is decisive in this case is respondent’s intent in trying to mislead the court by presenting this document. If the lawyer willfully introduced a fake document, SC will condemn the lawyer,” the senator was quoted as saying.

Based on the penalties, if the court finds the lawyer guilty of misconduct and violation of Canons 21, 10 and 1 of the Code of professional responsibility, he is suspended from the practice of law for three years effective immediately, she said.

Santiago noted that the prosecution admitted in their pleading, the supplemental request for issuance of subpoena on bank records and officials of Philippine Savings Bank (PS Bank) and Bank of Philippine Islands (BPI) in which the now controversial bank documents have been “attached,” that they cannot vouch for its authenticity, they can still be held liable and penalized.

If it’s not fake, then there won’t be any sanctions at all, said Pimentel.

Pimentel, when asked on the prosecution panel’s claim that there was “good faith” on their part in submitting the documents, said he remains firm in his position on the issue.

“For me if a lawyer submits a fake document, there should be sanctions but I only carry one vote,” he said.

Enrile himself sided with Santiago when he addressed the impeachment court on the matter following a query by Sen. Loren Legarda as to how they should resolve the question on the authenticity of the documents in the light of the testimonies of Tiongson and Garcia, saying that it’s up to the contending parties to “do their job” in dealing with the issue of the authenticity of the said documents.

“That’s a matter to be taken up in the course of the trial by the contending parties. I would not wish to suggest the remedies available to each side on this particular matter. I know that as trial lawyers they know the procedures,” Enrile said.

“I just want to state for the record that my thought on this is to hold in abeyance until we have taken it up in a caucus. But I just want to advance the thought that reading the supplemental request for subpoena, dated 3 Feb. 2012. It is during this time that the prosecution, it was in accordance with this supplemental request, that the questioned document was attached with this pleading,” he added.

“I’m not accusing anybody but I think the requesting party knew very well that the source of the material was of questionable nature. In fact, the mere knowledge that the source was anonymous should have given the prosecution enough caution to scrutinize the document before they presented it to this court as a basis for compulsory process. They cannot pass the buck to this court because in our system of adversarial proceeding, it is the obligation, the duty of the parties seeking the assistance of this court to make it sure that the request is valid in every respect and more so in the case of the prosecution where the matter under consideration of the court involves a prejudice on the liberty or rights of the party,” the presiding judge was quoted as saying.

“As the lady senator (Santiago) from Iloilo said yesterday, the ethics of the profession requires every lawyer representing a client to assume that responsibility. On the other side of the coin, the court whether it is a court belonging to a judicial system or a special court like this impeachment court must give due course and presume the good faith of the requesting party with the knowledge that it has exercised the necessary caution to present to the court hearing the case an authentic and valid document as a basis for compulsory process. So I will leave it at that and we will take it up in a caucus on Monday,” he said.

Lead prosecutor Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr., in an apparent last ditch effort to save face over their faux pas, called Enrile’s attention claiming that it was the presiding officer who directed the bank officers to authenticate the documents by issuing an order to bring the original copies to compare it with the filed attachments.

“That is correct but it turned out that the account involved is covered by foreign currency deposit and there is a TRO (temporary restraining order issued by the SC) which the majority of this court opted to recognize. Then came the issue of authenticity and the witness said it is a fake document so the issue is, is this really a fake document or not. I repeated to the witness ‘are you sure that this is a fake document’ and she confirmed that it is a fake document, under oath and that stands in the record as the answer of the witness. And unless you have a controverting evidence that will stand on the record of a characterization by the bank of this document,” said Enrile.

“And you are bound by it because you presented that witness as your witness. If you have read the rules of evidence, I think you will agree with me that that is the rule, that the presenting lawyer of the witness must be bound by these admissions and statements of the witness presented by him or her,” he said.

Tupas still tried to reason out saying that Tiongson’s statements will have repercussions and “there’s grave consequences and to us, the best evidence here is the document itself and at the very least, the witness should bring the document.”

“My understanding sir, the law must be respected. There is a law that prohibits disclosure and the SC issued a TRO and this court, by majority vote opted to respect the TRO of the SC. Now, your witness, not my witness, not the defense witness characterized this as a fake document. Now if that is so, and that is under oath, you are bound by that statement. If you want to controvert it, you are free to do it, there is a remedy for it if you know how to present it,” said Enrile.

“We’ll we leave it to the wisdom of this honorable tribunal,” Tupas, in finally submitting to Enrile’s arguments, said.

“It’s not my wisdom. That is the rule of trial. If you studied your trial technique very well, that’s the rule,” the Senate chief retorted.

As the impeachment trial enters its sixth week today, the prosecution panel remained confident that the Senate impeachment court won’t throw out the pieces of evidence pertaining to the top magistrate’s multimillion-peso secret bank accounts.

For the last two weeks, the impeachment proceedings have revolved around Corona’s huge bank deposits, which, according to testimonies and records, reached P32 million in 2010 alone. On December 12, 2011, the day the chief magistrate was impeached by 188 congressmen, he closed three bank accounts with a combined worth of close to P37 million.

Counsels for the defense are fighting to have the bank documents declared as inadmissible evidence, claiming these were obtained in violation of the bank secrecy law.

“What has been established so far is the fact that the respondent chief justice has millions stashed in secret bank accounts that he did not disclose in his net worth declarations and that there is a huge discrepancy between his tax declarations and his hidden wealth uncovered by the prosecution,” said Marikina City Rep. Miro Quimbo, prosecution spokesman.

“We are confident that the senator-judges will not allow the evidence to go down the drain,” he added.

Besides, Quimbo explained, the bank accounts being contested by Corona’s camp have already been confirmed by bank officials before the Senate impeachment court and validated by existing bank records.

Fellow spokesman Deputy Speaker Erin Tañada strongly feels the senator-judges themselves are convinced the bank documents are authentic and have evidentiary value insofar as the Article II of the impeachment case against Corona is concerned.

“We have reason to believe that the Senate will admit the bank documents as evidence once offered by the prosecution. The fact that the senator-judges are asking for additional information on Mr. Corona’s other bank accounts and those of his wife’s, shows the amount of interest they have in finding out how much money did the couple keep in their bank accounts,” Tanada said.

Aurora Rep. Sonny Angara, another prosecution spokesman, said they are confident the Senate will give due weight to the testimonies and documents provided by officials of the PSBank and the Bank of the Philippine Island (BPI), where the chief magistrate kept his millions.

“Our evidence on Mr. Corona’s huge bank accounts are sufficient and strong enough to stand in the impeachment court,” Angara said.

In his Statement of Assets, Liabilites and Networth (SALn) for 2010, Corona declared he only had P3.5 million cash assets.

However, the impeachment tribunal discovered he had close to P32 million in unreported cash deposits as of end-2010.

Also in 2010, Corona’s two bank accounts with the PSBank yielded P19.73 million, while another bank account with the BPI had some P12.02 million.

During the last hearing on Thursday, PSBank president Pascual Garcia III and Katipunan branch manager Annabelle Tiongson likewise testified that Corona had P36.7-million worth of peso time deposits under three accounts that he withdrew and closed on the same day the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to impeach him.

The prosecution viewed this as a “clear sign of guilt” on the part of the chief justice, who repeatedly claimed he has nothing to hide although he has filed a petition before the Supreme Court asking his colleagues to stop the impeachment tribunal from looking into his dollar deposits and nullify the entire impeachment proceedings.

The PSBank president is expected to reveal the other bank accounts of Corona and his wife Cristina when the impeachment trial resumes on Monday. Earlier, Garcia disclosed the chief magistrate opened seven peso accounts and five dollar accounts with them.

Aside from the unreported bank deposits that Corona did not declare in his 2010 SALn, he also purchased three condominium units worth P27.2 million, which he underdeclared.

The issue of money generated from the withdrawal or closure of Corona’s accounts on Dec. 12, 2011, cannot be subject to Article II of the Articles of Impeachment against the Chief Justice, noted lawyer Romulo Macalintal said.

Ted Boehnert

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