A top Philippine judge chairing President Joseph Estrada's corruption trial upheld on Tuesday a ruling that prosecutors had to prove enormous funds allegedly stashed in a secret bank account were ill-acquired.
Supreme court chief justice Hilario Davide, the presiding officer at the trial conducted by a tribunal of Senators, also rejected outright a prosecution motion for clarification of his December 22 ruling on the issue.
Davide had ruled then that even though a senior bank officer had testified she saw Estrada signing a 500 million peso (9.6 million dollar) trust account using a false name, prosecutors should prove that the money was acquired through false means.
This was necessary so the testimony of the witness, Clarisso Ocampo, the senior vice-president of Equitable-PCI Bank, would not be struck from the record, Davide ruled.
Prosecutors had reportedly protested against the ruling, saying the law stated that assets of a public official that were grossly disproportionate to their income were automatically assumed to be ill-gotten.
However Davide rejected the argument. "The motion for clarification has been denied for lack of merit," he said Tuesday.
Prosecutor Joker Arroyo said following the ruling that he would abide by the decision, stressing however that the prosecution would eventually prove the matter anyway.
Ocampo had testified that Estrada repeatedly signed a false name on the trust account in front of her at the presidential office in February this year.
Prosecutors had told the Senate tribunal that Ocampo's testimony showed Estrada hid assets 14 times what he declared in his 1999 income tax returns.
This proved he was corrupt, they said.
Ocampo told the tribunal she had gone to the presidential palace on February 4 last year to have Estrada sign documents covering the 500 million-peso investment he was placing with the bank.
She said Estrada signed the signature cards for the trust account in the name of Jose Velarde.
"I just couldn't believe it," she said. "He did not sign his real name so I decided not to authenticate his signature" -- MANILA (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
