Corona lawyers ready to face raps over ‘bribe try’ claims

Monday, February 13, 2012

MANILA (Updated 1:11 p.m.) -- Lawyers of Chief Justice Renato Corona are ready to face contempt charges as they stand against naming their source on the alleged attempts of Malacañang to bribe senators.

Former justice undersecretary Ramon Esguerra said the lawyers are willing to be cited in contempt and even go to jail to protect their source.

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"Siguro at the risk of being cited in contempt and at the risk of being jailed...maybe they will view it as a disobedience of a lawful order of the impeachment court, nakahanda kami," Esguerra told dzMM radio.

The defense lawyers charged Malacañang with interfering in the impeachment trial by allegedly offering senators P100-million in exchange for disregarding a Supreme Court (SC) injunction on disclosing Corona’s dollar accounts.

In a press conference Sunday, lawyer Dennis Manalo said according to an unnamed source, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. had been urging senator-judges to disregard the temporary restraining order that the SC issued Thursday to keep Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) from disclosing details of Corona's dollar accounts there.

The money will come from savings and can be used for soft projects, lawyer Jose Roy III said.

The defense panel repeatedly refused to name its source, but Roy said the anonymous source is "very reliable."

Corona's lawyers will invoke attorney-client privilege if pressed by the Senate to reveal the anonymous source, their spokesman Tranquil Salvador III said in a text message Monday afternoon.

Esguerra earlier said "reliable or not, we believe (this is true)."

Defense spokesperson Karen Jimeno also said the defense team is ready to face the consequences of their statements.

"They did not accuse senators of receiving the P100 million but that Malacañang is trying to intervene with the impeachment process," she said in a text message to reporters.

Earlier, Senator Panfilo Lacson told reporters he would suggest citing the defense panel for contempt for statements made at a press conference Sunday night.

"In my humble opinion, that is contemptuous," Lacson said, adding the Senate can compel defense lawyers to name their source and "the senators concerned."

Senators were quick to deny the bribe try, as was Ochoa himself, who dismissed the allegations as a "desperate gimmick." (Jonathan de Santos/Sunnex)