Demetrio Vicente, witness for the defense in the ongoing impeachment trial, at one point during an interview, joked, “O, ganyan ba ang mayaman?” (Inquirer, 3/18/12), implying he is not rich to justify his failure to transfer the title of his Marikina property to his name.
Vicente said he pays P35,000 a year in real property taxes for this property—a 3,400-square-meter lot, surrounded on all sides by a high wall, on which his far-from-modest house (with a split-type air-conditioner) stands; and where, at present, he has 2,000 bonsai trees, the market price of any of which ranges from a low of P5,000 to as high as P500,000 (especially those that have won awards and citations in bonsai competitions). He owns a 10-door apartment in Quezon City and receives regular remittance from his daughter who works as a chef in the Middle East. He has two cars, two dogs (a Pomeranian and a bulldog, not askals) and two cockatoos. He said that no less than two Supreme Court justices (other than Chief Justice Renato Corona) had visited him in his Marikina house. (Lest we forget, he admitted he is a cousin of Corona, a fact he has consistently and strangely downplayed.)
Despite all this, he wants us to believe he is mahirap, perennially running out of funds such that until now he has not been able to transfer the title of this Marikina property, which he bought 22 years ago, to his name.
What is he waiting for? Selling just one or two of his award-winning bonsai could easily cover the expense of transferring the title. It is a basic human instinct to want to assume ownership of what one has bought. And it is Vicente’s bounden duty, to himself and to his heirs, to have what he is supposed to have bought 22 years ago titled in his name, to show unequivocal proof of his purchase and his ownership. A person’s prolonged physical presence in a particular premise does not give him indisputable ownership of that place.
To dispel the suspicion that he is only serving as a caretaker of the Coronas, Vicente stated: “If I were merely a caretaker, how would this bonsai have roots like that?” Non-sequitur.
Vicente now says he wants to sell the property for P27.2 million because he prefers a new and bigger place where real property taxes are not as high as those in Marikina. The amount proves beyond reasonable doubt that he is not at all mahirap and totally debunks his alibi of lack of funds. He is a giant balite masquerading as bonsai, a velvet-robed millionaire in the guise of a pauper! Because of its many inconsistencies, everything that Vicente testified to bears the unmistakable stench of untruth and unreality. Never once did he state that he derives income from the sale of the thousands of bonsai that he says is his. It appears that he has only been buying bonsai all these years and not selling them, thereby making him a bonsai hobbyist, enthusiast and collector—a preoccupation of people who have lots of money. Ganyan ba ang mahirap?
—ANTONIO CALIPJO GO, academic supervisor, Marian School of Quezon City, 199 Sauyo Rd., Novaliches, Quezon City