No huge discount

from the typhoon.

His testimony contradicted the claim of the prosecution panel that the Chief Justice got a 40-percent discount from Megaworld when he purchased the unit.

No favor received

Megaworld Corp. also on Tuesday issued a statement to deny “malicious” allegations that the sale of condominium units mentioned in the impeachment proceedings was in consideration for favors received or requested from the High Court.

The company admitted that there were three cases involving Megaworld that reached the Supreme Court, all of which have been decided with finality. Of the three cases, the company lost two. The decision of the case won by Megaworld Corp. was penned by Corona in 2004, or five years before the purchase of The Bellagio property.

“A cursory examination of the records of the court’s decisions, which are open to the public, including legal ‘analysts’ and ‘commentators,’ would readily show that Megaworld has never requested nor obtained any favor from anyone in the court, including the Chief Justice who is presently standing trial,” the statement said.

“For the record, we wish to state that in all our business dealings with Chief Justice Corona, the company has neither solicited nor obtained any favor either from the Chief Justice or from the court. The records of decided cases involving our company are open to scrutiny since the same form part of public documents. In all these cases, we have followed all judicial processes, availed of all legal remedies and abided by all the final decisions of the court,” it added.

Going nowhere

During Tuesday’s trial, some senators expressed their frustration over the seemingly lack of direction of the prosecution in the presentation of witnesses.

Sen. Pia Cayatano said that there apparently was no connection between the testimony of Hernandez with Article 2, which cites the alleged failure of Corona to disclose to the public his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth.

Cayetano asked the prosecutors about the relevance of the testimony of the witness to the article currently being tackled, noting that the impeachment court spent more than 30 minutes discussing issues that seemed to have no connection with the second article.

Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. raised the same question, saying that the testimony would not help the senatorjudges come up with a decision on Article 2.