Release Corona’s bank records, Court orders

MANILA, Philippines – The Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, ordered two Philippine banks to produce the alleged bank records of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona.

The decision by the majority of the senator-judges, announced by Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III on Monday, February 6 at the resumption of the impeachment trial, grants the request of the prosecution for the Court to subpeona officials and bank documents from the Bank of the Philippine Islands and the PSBank.

Last Friday, February 3, the prosecution submitted a supplemental request to the Senate impeachment court which attached certain bank records, particularly an alleged US$700,000 account of Corona with PBBank Katipunan branch in Quezon City. (That’s equivalent to about P30 million at current exchange rates of around P43 to a dollar.)

The $700,000 deposited in account number 08919100037-3 is supposedly just one of 14 accounts that the Chief Justice and his wife Cristina individually and jointly own with daughter Carla Castillo and her husband Constantino III.

The Court ordered the banks to present the documents on Wednesday, February 8.

Sotto said the Senate majority believes that while bank secrecy laws protect the individual from bank scrutiny, impeachment provides valid exemption to confidentiality even for foreign bank accounts. – Rappler.com