InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
MANILA, Philippines - (UPDATE - 5:08 p.m.) Chief Justice Renato Corona received a 40 percent discount, valued at an estimated P10 million, from Megaworld Corporation in line with his supposed purchase of a 300-square-meter penthouse unit in the company’s prime development at the Bonifacio Global City, a prosecution lawyer said on Monday, Day 8 of the impeachment trial against Corona.
Private prosecutor Joseph Joemer Perez said he was informed of the discount by Giovanni Ng, finance officer of Megaworld Corp., who took the witness stand.
Perez told the Senate impeachment court that “a public official of probity and integrity” would never accept such a discount from a developer that might have pending cases before the Supreme Court.
The prosecution on Monday was attempting to establish that Megaworld Corporation grossly undercut market prices in December 2009 to sell to Chief Justice Renato Corona a penthouse unit at its most prime condominium, in violation of anti-corruption laws.
However, Corona’s lawyers dismissed Perez’s revelation, saying it should have come from Ng and not from the private prosecutor.
"Answers should come from the witness, not the lawyer," defense spokesman Tranquil Salvador III said in Filipino.
"Why would you manifest to a matter that you have not sworn to and to which you have no personal knowledge since you are not a witness here?" Karen Jimeno, another defense spokesperson, said.
The defense also argued that the supposed discount has nothing to do with Article of Impeachment No. 2, which the Senate is currently hearing.
The article has to do with Corona’s alleged failure to disclose his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth.
"What does a P10-million discount have to do with that?" Jimeno said.
The defense also said Ng could only speak of hearsay since he had no personal knowledge of the transaction.
Prosecutors called Ng to the stand to establish the value of the unit sold to Corona, as well as to validate their assertion that it was in fact Corona who paid for and owns the controversial unit. Prosecution spokesman Rep. Miro Quimbo noted that the property, purchased in 2009, was not declared in Corona's earlier SALNs, and by the time it was declared was claimed at an undervalued price of P6 million.
Rep. Erin Tañada said the discount amounts to a "gift", the receipt of which is tantamount to violations of the anti-graft and corrupt pratices act, and of judicial ethics.
On Perez’s questioning, Ng said he asked for information from Megaworld’s marketing department and was told the price per square meter of the penthouse at the time it was bought was P78,000.
But Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said Ng’s was hearsay since he had no personal knowledge about the actual price.
According to the deed of sale, Corona and his wife Cristina bought the Bellagio penthouse for P14.5 million.
The couple also purchased three parking slots, measuring 12.5 square meters each, at about P700,000 each.
Among the charges leveled against Corona in this trial is his alleged “failure to meet and observe the stringent standards under the Constitution that provided that a member of the judiciary must be a person of proven competence, integrity, probity and independence … ”
The Bellagio property was declared in Corona’s statement of assets, liabilities and net worth only in 2010, where it was valued at P6.8 million.
Representatives Romero Federico Quimbo of Marikina and Lorenzo Tanada III of Quezon, spokesmen of the prosecution team, said the panel will present another witness who will discuss the P10-million discount.
Both said they are also looking into the pending cases of Megaworld before the Supreme Court.
“Maybe it is also good to find out if the Chief Justice was the ponente (author) in any of these decisions (involving Megaworld),” Tanada added.
In his earlier testimony, Ng said it was the Corona couple, not their daughter Czarina, who paid for another property, a P6.1-million lot in McKinley Hill Village in Taguig City.
The deed of absolute sale, however, showed the name of Czarina as the buyer of the 203.6-square meter lot from Megaworld Corp. in 2008, Ng said.
All 27 official receipts for the payment of the lot were made out to the name of the Chief Justice and Cristina, Ng said, although Corona subsequently wrote them asking that the deed of absolute sale for the property be made in favor of Czarina.
Megaworld’s sale of the penthouse – at the company’s prime Bellagio condominium development – was earlier detailed in a post by investigative journalist Raissa Robles.
In a post on raissarobles.com in early January, Robles said that Corona "also may have enjoyed tax breaks on the same transaction, courtesy of the Bureau of Internal Revenue," benefiting from an undervaluation of the property based on what should have been the fair zonal pricing.
Prosecutors are seeking to establish that the Chief Justice has properties that have not been declared in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth or SALN.
The prosecution says that Corona and his wife, Cristina, purchased, among others, a condominium unit and three parking slots for P14.5 million at The Bellagio, located at the high-end Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City.
The 303.5-square meter Unit 38B and the three parking slots, each 12.5 square meters, were bought in December 2009, when Corona was still an associate justice, and the titles transferred to his and Cristina’s name in January 2010.
Robles, a veteran investigative journalist who is Manila correspondent for the South China Morning Post and Radio Netherlands, makes the case that beyond the unit not having been declared in Corona’s SALN, it may also have been inexplicably underpriced, to the point of being – as one of her cited analysts said - “a steal”.
Megaworld Corporation, "which directly sold the condo to CJ Corona," Robles noted, "has had legal suits before the Supreme Court while Corona sat as an Associate Justice," and provided links to the same, but stressed that "I could not see Corona’s name being mentioned as having cast any vote for or against Megaworld in any of the suits."
Still, the selling price for the Bellagio unit by itself was suspicious. Robles talked "to an architect and two other sources who do not know each other and have had no dealings with CJ Corona. Both declined to be identified. One is a prominent realty broker who deals with upmarket properties in Metro Manila. The other works in a well-known property research firm specializing in tracking high-end properties."
Bellagio 1 was completed in end 2008, according to Megaworld. The realty broker interviewed by Robles noted that penthouse units at the prime, flagship development should have been pre-selling at around P80,000 to P85,000 per sq m. "At that price alone, CJ Corona's 303.5 sq m unit would have cost at least P24.28 million. Add to that P800,000 per parking slot (of which he bought three) and that would raise the cost to P26.68 million," Robles said.
All were sold to Corona for a total of P14.5 million. One year after Bellagio 1 was completed, and certainly long past the pre-selling period, Corona's penthouse "was still cheaper than the pre-selling price," the journalists' source said.
"After a building is finished, units automatically rise in price because there is no longer the risk of non-completion," stressed Robles' analyst source from the property research firm.
Megaworld has refused to comment on its transaction with Corona. Robles said. "I tried to broach the subject with Megaworld Investment Information Officer John Hao. He said he was not allowed to speak on the issue. He told me the same thing he had told the newspapers:
Robles, in her post, goes on to detail and raise questions about how Corona's unit – which he has acknowledged he had purchased "in installments" – also seems to have been taxed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue far below what should have been assessed its real zonal value. She also raises questions about whether or not the unit was in fact purchased "in installments" or in lumpsum.
See Raissa Robles' full post here.
