Prosecution rejects info on immorality of chief jurist

WHILE it is apparently determined to settle for nothing but a guilty verdict against Chief Justice Renato Corona before the Senate impeachment court, the House prosecution panel has been rejecting information from anonymous sources alleging the immorality of the chief magistrate.

Prosecution panel spokesman Romero Quimbo of Marikina City (Metro Manila) made the disclosure on Friday, or a day after a member of the prosecution team’s secretariat—rep. Jorge “Bolet” Banal of the Fourth District of Quezon City (Metro Manila)—admitted to seeking help of a bank official to verify an information that supposedly was

left at his gate by an unidentified source.

The supposed information was reported to have come in the form of a document that appeared to concern dollar accounts of Corona.

Quimbo noted that the prosecutors were getting a lot of supposed pieces of evidence against the Chief Justice, including information about the top magistrate’s alleged immorality.

He, however, said that 75 to 80 percent of such pieces of evidence given to them by anonymous sources were not relevant to their case against Corona.

“We received information from anonymous sources with regard to the personal life of the Chief Justice, alleging immorality, but we rejected it because [ it is] not relevant to the Articles of Impeachment. It would not boost our case,” Quimbo told reporters.

Corona is facing eight Articles of Impeachment before senator-judges constituting the impeachment court presided by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.