Defense: Why float Corona ‘foreign accounts?’

MANILA, Philippines – Lawyers of Chief Justice Renato Corona are worried about the supposed peso and foreign currency bank accounts of their client that are now surfacing. 

Defense Spokesperson Tranquil Salvador III said Corona’s camp knows nothing about purported “transaction records” of the Chief Justice obtained by Kaya Natin lead convenor Harvey Keh from an anonymous source.

Keh submitted a copy of the supposed records to Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile on Monday, May 7.

Salvador told reporters he heard that the alleged records were already uploaded on Facebook and other social media sites also on Monday.

“We’ll see what the next step of the Senate President will be because the Senate being an impeachment court, as justices, they cannot introduce evidence. The only ones who can introduce evidence are the prosecution and the defense,” Salvador said in Filipino. 

He added, “For us, we don’t know of that. The prosecution did not present that as evidence. That’s not in the complaint.”

$10M, now this? 

Salvador said that the defense team is concerned why information supposedly about Corona’s bank accounts are surfacing from outside the impeachment trial.

Aside from the “transaction records,” he cited the Ombudsman order asking Corona to explain his alleged US $10 million.

“We are worried with what’s happening that the information comes from outside. They float it first before we find out …. They say just address it. We did, we denied it but nobody believed us.”

On April 20, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales wrote Corona asking him to explain reports that he has at least US $10 million in dollar deposits. Corona denied the allegation and slammed it as black propaganda.

Enrile has yet to issue a statement on the supposed bank records that Keh submitted to his office. – Rappler.com