LOWDOWN, TOO
By Jojo Robles

What does a bank do when it is being pressured from within to allow itself to be used for purely political ends? And why should it succumb to such pressures, knowing full well what the possible repercussions on the bank's stability and very existence will be?

From the beginning, I have always believed that there was no “small woman” who mysteriously handed over bank documents to a House prosecutor in the Senate trial of impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona. Neither is there any other person – real, juridical or even fictional – who has been dropping off similar papers at the doorstep of yet another member of the prosecution team inside a gated Quezon City community.

No. The only conclusion that can be derived from the easy availability of what appear to be secret and tightly-guarded bank documents to the people who want Corona convicted is that PSBank itself has been leaking them to the prosecution.

There is compelling evidence to support this belief. But let's start from the very visible presence of the chairman of the board of PSBank, Jose “Titoy” Pardo, on the same stage where President Noynoy Aquino openly attacked Corona last week at La Consolacion College in Manila.

Why should Pardo, who currently holds no government position, share the same stage as Aquino when he made his PowerPoint presentation detailing to incredulous students of “La Co” the supposed hidden wealth of Corona? It certainly isn't because he is also chairman of another bank, the San Miguel-controlled Bank of Commerce, by special dispensation of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

But Pardo is known to be a very close adviser of Aquino. Otherwise, he wouldn't be on the same stage with him when the President decided to renew his monomaniacal tirades against the chief justice despite the fact that the Senate is already deep into the trial.

As for Aquino, he has insisted that the bank documents being used by the prosecution in the trial, wherever they may have come from, are genuine. In a rare moment of consonance with his boss, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda has also said the same thing, at least as many times.

What is the source of the confidence of both Aquino and Lacierda, if they did not know that the bank itself, with the assistance of Pardo, was leaking them? Why shouldn't they be so confident, when the source of their documents is not some anonymous, mysterious and ultimately fictitious source?

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But to get back to PSBank, which is 76 percent owned by the Metrobank Group of businessman George S.K. Ty, there is another source of pressure to disclose confidential bank records apart from Pardo, the chairman of the board. And that is a member of the board of trustees of the Metrobank Foundation, Milagros Serrano Genuino Drilon.

Mila Drilon is the second wife of Senator Franklin Drilon, the judge in the Corona impeachment trial who has been roundly criticized as a member of the prosecution. Mrs. Drilon has no other reason to sit on the board of Ty's foundation, which is best known for its annual search for the outstanding schoolteachers in the Philippines, other than the fact that she is the wife of the senator.

Senator Drilon has reportedly been asking top officials of Metrobank to divulge all that they know about Corona's bank accounts. These bank officials, who will not be named because they refused Drilon's overtures, reportedly told the senator that they cannot cooperate with him and Aquino because they are not owners of the bank who can make such momentous decisions.

But that was before Pardo stepped into the picture and decided that his loyalty to Aquino had priority over his loyalty to PSBank. And the real victims in this sad breach of banking laws and established practices are Ty, his fellow shareholders, PSBank's depositors and creditors and the entire banking community.

All of this is why there is no small woman, no mysterious package-deliverer in Xavierville, no anonymous or mythical creature providing the prosecution with bank documents that are supposedly secure and confidential. And that is why Aquino and Lacierda can say with all confidence that these documents are beyond a doubt authentic – even if they should have never seen or received copies of them to begin with.

PSBank itself has been leaking documents about Corona. Pardo's bank is the small woman, the mysterious delivery boy and the source of Aquino's belief that the chief justice is hiding ill-gotten wealth in PSBank, all rolled into one.*