Question of trust

Chief Justice Renato Corona’s impeachment trial wraps up this week. His appearance and testimony before the Senate tribunal last week afforded him the chance to address the charges against him while also giving the public ample opportunity to weigh for itself whether or not he should be convicted. Amid the spectacle and thunder of courtroom drama, which last week’s trial certainly didn’t lack, the public should not lose sight of the article of impeachment brought against the head magistrate—his alleged betrayal of the public trust for filing his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs) without disclosing his real financial worth.

Central to the question is whether he should be sanctioned for not declaring his dollar accounts. Corona last Friday disputed claims by Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales that he had amassed $10 million-$12 million in bank accounts. He said that many of the 82 bank accounts Morales mentioned in her earlier testimony had been closed. He said there were only four dollar accounts by December 2011 amounting to $2.4 million.

But why did he not disclose his dollar deposits in his SALN? He explained he did not include them because they were covered by the absolute confidentiality clause of the foreign currency deposit law. He added his deposits were “commingled” with other funds consisting of the proceeds from the sale of a Manila property owned by the family of his wife, as well as the Corona family’s savings.

Corona should be commended for disclosing his foreign deposits and abandoning his earlier offer to waive the confidentiality of the deposits but only on the condition that the 188 House members who signed his impeachment and Sen. Franklin Drilon would issue similar waivers on their own accounts. Although he has offered no documents to back up his disclosure on the size of his dollar deposits, he took to task the Ombudsman for making a claim seemingly based on a rather free-wheeling analysis of money movements tracked by the Commission on Audit, as revealed in the report by the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), a report which Corona said was “unauthenticated.”

But still, the total of the admitted dollar deposits is big at $2.4 million, and whether or not these accounts are “commingled,”  Corona should have disclosed them. His legal interpretation that he didn’t need to because of the absolute confidentiality of foreign deposits in the law may be deemed self-serving. Moreover, if absolute confidentiality is a requirement of the law, he should have at least balanced this with the requirement of faithful and truthful disclosure of SALNs by public officials. To be sure, the absolute confidentiality clause was not meant to abet corruption by allowing plunderers to park their ill-gotten wealth in foreign currency deposits. Corona himself has said he has used the dollar deposits as hedge funds and as investment. If he felt he was doing legitimate business, there was no reason for him not to disclose them.

Corona has raised relevant questions about impeachment as a political—and politicking process—when he accused President Aquino of using all the instrumentalities of government, even supposedly independent bodies such as the Bangko Sentral (which, according to the

PSBank, had brought with it the AMLC when it inspected Corona’s accounts), the COA and the Ombudsman, in an alleged conspiracy to boot him out of office because he could not serve the President’s interest, especially on Hacienda Luisita. In short, he’s not the President’s man.

But Corona may have revealed his true colors when he said that as chair of the Judicial and Bar Council, he didn’t vote for Morales as Ombudsman. Earlier, he explained his testy relations with Morales. “Although we were civil to each other, there is an undercurrent of distrust,” he said. “For lack of a better word … we are not allies.”

The remark reinforces public perception that he’s overly partisan and that his combative, litigious character may not serve him well as chief jurist. It’s the sort of trait that has embroiled him in a bitter family squabble with the Basas over inheritance issues. It’s the sort of trait too that magnifies perception that he’s the lapdog of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and that she had made him chief jurist via a midnight appointment exactly because he was her “ally” and was expected to protect her interest.

Considering all this, can we still truly trust Chief Justice Renato Corona? We will find out this week.