The Philippine Online Chronicles

As if the lengthy exchange of arguments in the Senate impeachment trial is not enough, another battle stage has been set up to further pin down Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Renato Corona. The Palace accusation: Corona used judicial reform funds from the World Bank (WB) “as a personal piggy bank.”

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda made the statement last week, banking on news reports on the WB’s aide memoire which uncovered SC’s questionable procurements and disbursements in connection with Judicial Reform Support Project (JRSP).

Lacierda said the memo "is the surest evidence that funds meant for judicial reforms were wasted: and in the process, basic rules of good governance were ignored."

The issue has also put SC spokesperson Midas Marquez in the hot seat, as the supposed WB memo hit him for performing multiple duties under the project.

‘Ineligible expenses’

The JRSP, which is partly funded by a WB loan of $21.9 million (P941 million, at P43 to $1), was designed to restore efficiency in the dispensation of justice in the country.

The loan for JRSP was approved in 2003, and covered four project components: improving case adjudication and access to justice enhancing institutional integrity; strengthening the capacity of the judiciary; and support for reform of the judicial system and for the SC’s Program Management Office (PMO).

But the project has “deteriorated” and has incurred “ineligible expenses,” according to a Dec. 28, 2011 WBmemo addressed to SC Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo de Castro. De Castro is the chair of the JRSP Management Committee.

“The review discloses that the fiduciary environment pertaining to JRSP implementation has so deteriorated that the task team now rates the JRSP as a ‘high risk’ and ‘unsatisfactory’ on project management, project procurement and financial management dimensions, and observes that project financial statements can no longer be relied upon,” the WB said.

News site Rappler.com was the first one to publish and report on the memo, three days before the Senate started the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Corona. It noted in its report that 53 percent of the 133 transactions worth $5.5 million were found to be “ineligible,” adding that a chunk of these ineligible funds “went to the purchase of computers, with over P2 million used to buy laptops for different offices of the SC.”

The report also said that the WB found out that over P200,000 was spent for the airfare of chief magistrates.

Corona camp cries foul

Corona denied his involvement in the misuse of judicial reform funds, saying the anomaly happened before he assumed his position as Chief Justice.

In the same breath, he said the other findings stated in the WB memo can be explained by Judge Geraldin Econg of the Program Management Office (PMO), which manages the project’s funds.

But Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad pointed out that the alleged irregularities disclosed by the WB occurred during Corona’s term as chief justice. "If you read the Annex 4 of the report, it was very clear there that the gross irregularities happened in 2010 and 2011," he said.

Still, SC spokesperson Midas Marquez said the WB report was deliberately leaked at the start of the trial “to further humiliate Chief Justice Renato Corona and condition the mind of the public in the impeachment process.”

Is the report a hoax?

Doubts on the authenticity of the memo cropped up after it was found out that the WB did not release the documents to the media.

A copy of the supposed memo was e-mailed to media organizations using a free e-mail account named worldbankreport@gmail.com. The e-mail claimed it was an official statement from the World Bank.

But World Bank program assistant program assistant for external relations Erika Leann Lacson-Esguerra said last Jan. 16 that “any official statement from the WB will be posted online at www.worldbank.org.ph.”

A day later, the WB published a statement confirming it had written an aide memoire to raise the “implementation issues in the $21.9-million judicial reform project, and submitted it to the SC and oversight agencies on Dec. 28, 2011.

The statement did not give even the slightest hint of misuse of judicial reform fund – as what media reports were saying based on the supposed WB memo.

The WB said that the memo was not disclosed to the public due to the “deliberative nature of information.” It also refused to confirm whether the aide memoire it sent to government representatives is the same as the one being circulated to members of the media.

Palace pushes probe

Amid the confusion, the Palace asserted the memo published online and the official one from the World Bank are identical.

“The version uploaded by a media outfit online, and theirs, are a match,’’ Lacierda said, claiming that 10 officials from the executive branch were provided a copy of the aide memoire by the World Bank.

"We saw that. We verified it with the officials who were furnished a copy of the World Bank report," Lacierda added.

He said President Benigno Aquino III wanted the report to “officially come out” whether in congressional inquiry or in the ongoing impeachment trial of Corona.

Proof of Palace determination to incite public interest in the issue is its publication of of a briefer on the WB loan on the official government website – a few days before the WB confirmed that it had written a memo on the JRSP.

Previously, the Palace said the Office of the Ombudsman should look into the alleged misuse of the WB loan. “This will have to be audited by the Commission on Audit and if there are any appearances of graft and corruption, certainly the Office of the Ombudsman must take, and should take, a look into this World Bank aide memoire,” Lacierda said in a report.

Resolutions seeking an investigation into the WB fund controversy had also been filed separately by Bayan Muna Representatives Teddy Casiño and Neri Colmenares at the House of Representatives, and by Sen. Franklin Drilon at the Senate.

As it appears, the issue over the WB funds is a ready trigger for a separate probe in the name of cornering Corona. As to when the Palace will pull the trigger may depend on how it is faring on the Senate impeachment trial.