Lawmaker admits to dollar mission
REP. Jorge Banal of Quezon City, a member of the House prosecution panel secretariat, on Thursday admitted that he had sought the help of a bank official to confirm if Chief Justice Renato Corona had dollar accounts with Philippine Savings Bank (Psbank) Katipunan branch in the city.
Banal, a part of the Secretariat of the House prosecution team as a financial officer, made the admission after Psbank Katipunan Branch manager Annabelle Tiongson revealed before the Senate impeachment court that Banal approached her
on January 31 to inquire about certain documents that appear to contain information on Corona’s bank accounts.
Banal said that he went to Tiongson to verify information contained in a legal-sized paper featuring a handwritten “700K,” which appears to be a dollar account of Corona.
“I went there to seek her help. What she said was true. I just tried my luck because I don’t know her personally. I wanted to help our team,” he explained.
Tiongson said that she refused to help Banal.
Had she entertained the lawmaker’s request, she would have violated the Bank Secrecy Law.
“I did not want her to do something against her will,” Banal said.
According to him, he did not inform his colleagues of his actions since he did not want to feed them wrong information.
Earlier also on Thursday, the House prosecution panel denied deploying Banal to secure Corona’s account numbers from Psbank.
Rep. Niel Tupas Jr. of Iloilo province, the lead prosecutor in the Senate impeachment trial of Corona, made the statement moments after Tiongson revealed that Banal came to her office on January 31 to inquire about certain documents that appear to contain information on Corona’s bank accounts.
“If that is the case, we could have attached [the documents] to our request for subpoena. We only attached [the annexes to Corona’s accounts] on February 3 because I only got possession of [them] only on the eve of February 2 from Congressman Umali. That’s all I know,” Tupas told reporters, referring to fellow prosecutor and Rep. Reynaldo Umali of Oriental Mindoro province.
Banal’s “work is in finance so I don’t get to talk to him about other things,” he said.
Banal also serves as the vice chairman of the House Committee on Basic Education and Culture and an ex-officio member of the House justice panel.
Tiongson also told the impeachment court that Banal had shown her what seemed to be Psbank signature cards.
She said that the lawmaker was covering a portion of the cards where the signature of the owner was written, but she was able to get a glimpse and saw that the cards were under the name of a certain Renato Corona.
Tiongson added that the documents possessed by Banal were similar to documents attached by the prosecution panel to its request for subpoena.
Responding to a question by Sen. Loren Legarda, the bank officer said that upon seeing the documents, she told the lawmaker that she could not help him.
The impeachment court will subpoena Banal at the request of Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago.