Record of the Senate - Integrated Bar of the Philippines

6 TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2012Mr. Cuevas. No, it came from the Prosecution, Your Honor.The Presiding Officer. Well, that is the Prosecution.Mr. Cuevas. Yes, Your Honor.The Presiding Officer. All right.Mr. Cuevas. And we wanted to be heard in connection therewith, otherwise, we may be saidto have acquiesced to that kind of manifestation, Your Honor.If the records will be read, Your Honor, we have introduced quite a number of witnesses inconnection with our defense. Some of them they consist of three (3) register of deeds, three (3) cityassessors and provincial assessor, Your Honor. Insofar as the register of deeds is concerned, weintroduced them for the purpose of showing that there are no properties aside from those mentionedin the SALN, Your Honor, of the Honorable Chief Justice that belong or were registered in his name.We cannot lump up only one testimony or only one register of deeds because the properties werelocated in different places. So, if we presented the register of deeds of Makati, of Manila and ofQuezon City, it was never our purpose to gain time in order to delay the proceedings. Not even thethought of it, Your Honor, but because we cannot do so.The register of deeds of Makati will be highly incompetent, Your Honor, to testify in connectionwith the records of the office pertaining to Quezon City and Manila, and vice versa. That was ourpurpose. And, we also introduced in evidence the testimony of the Administrator of the LandRegistration Office. From the statements obtained from them on record we were able to showconvincingly, Your Honor, that the 45 real estate properties allegedly referred to be registered andowned by Chief Justice Corona do not all belong to him but only five (5) of them. Hence, it cannotbe said that our purpose was merely to delay because, apparently, we could read from the records thateven the Court was convinced that actually there were only five (5) or six (6) properties that reallybelong to Chief Justice Corona.Now, how about the testimony of the various representatives of the assessment office, Your Honor?We admit we introduced three (3) assessors: The city assessor of Makati, the city assessor of Manilaand the city assessor of Quezon City on the same ground because we cannot make one of them testifyfor the entirety of the properties not located in their respective places. So, if we presented three (3)assessors, I hope we will not be misunderstood as trying to delay the proceedings but it is because ofour recognition that one is not competent to testify as to the other and vice versa, Your Honor.Thereafter, we went further, Your Honor. We introduced in evidence the testimony of Ms. ArceliBayugan, the Finance Officer of the Supreme Court, in order to belie and contradict the statement onrecord that there was no income tax return made by the Honorable Chief Justice Corona. Becausefrom the testimony of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, there were no returns for the years 2005,2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010, Your Honor. We were able to introduce the returns, identified by ourwitness, they were duly marked, we took note of the trouble of marking the....The Presiding Officer. Counsel, we know all of that. It is all in the record. We are not accusingyou of delaying.Mr. Cuevas. Thank you, Your Honor. Because that was our impression that we introduced thesewitnesses simply to gain time. That is why we are placing on record....The Presiding Officer. I must admit that yesterday I said you are wasting the time of the Courtby introducing someone to testify on whether market fees had been collected from that market.