CJ Corona: PHP 1M raffle winner?

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas on Tuesday denied a bank official's testimonies that they and the Anti-Money Laundering Council were able to access Chief Justice Renato Corona’s bank records.

In its statement, BSP said its examiners did not inspect Corona’s deposit account records contrary to Philippine Savings Bank President Pascual Garcia's statement before the Day 20 impeachment trial.

Garcia told the impeachment court on Monday that Corona’s accounts were among those audited by BSP and AMLC in 2010.

BSP said its examiner, Jerry Leal, who is also a member of the AMLC Specialist Group, only validated if Corona was tagged as a politically exposed persons (PEP) after learning that the chief justice won P1 million in the PSBank’s raffle for its valued account holders.

“On examining PSBank’s PEP list, examiner Jerry Leal saw that the chief justice was not tagged as a PEP,” the BSP said in its statement.

As a result, BSP said PSBank was directed to improve its tagging of PEPs to strengthen its compliance with the Anti-Money Laundering Act.

“BSP examiners therefore could not have copied nor secured copies of such deposit account records of Chief Justice Renato Corona,” the statement added.

The Senate has been investigating the source of the leaked copies of Corona’s bank records, noting that if the prosecution’s documents were illegally obtained, the court would not admit the bank accounts as evidence.

source: http://ph.news.yahoo.com/bsp-denies-inspecting-corona-account.html