AS this was being written, the president of Philippine Savings Bank, Pascual Garcia III, was prepping himself for a second-day appearance at the Impeachment Court, even as the Supreme Court had included his bank’s petition in the agenda of its special en banc session starting Thursday, 2:30 p.m.
While he heeded the Impeachment Court subpoena to testify and bring records of Chief Justice Renato Corona on Wednesday, Garcia’s bank had earlier filed a petition, seeking “guidance” as he put it, before the SC. It wanted “guidance” on whether the private commercial bank—one of the country’s biggest and best-run—could violate the Foreign Currency Deposits Act, which admits of no exception (only upon written consent of the depositor) unlike the bank secrecy law on peso deposits (that explicitly lists impeachment cases among five exceptions), in the course of PSBank’s obeying the Impeachment Court’s subpoena duces tecum on the Corona dollar accounts.
The bank’s and Garcia’s obvious reluctance on the dollar accounts, notwithstanding, there was nothing contumacious, as Senator-Judge Joker Arroyo rightly pointed out, in the acts of Mr. Garcia in testifying at the Senate on Wednesday. This is why Senator Arroyo was almost in tears when he wondered aloud why some of his peers were rushing “to crucify” the hapless bank official by having him explain in writing to the court, with a 12 noon Thursday deadline, why he should not be held in contempt for only half-complying with the subpoenae, i.e., bringing only peso-account records of the CJ and not the dollar-account documents.
As everyone saw on national TV, Senator Arroyo’s emotional rebuke, ending with him raising his hands as if to signal hopelessness and saying “I give up,” apparently moved some of the senator-judges, even the hard-line Franklin Drilon, who was forced to stress, “we have not cited him for contempt [yet].” But precisely, as Joker Arroyo pointed out, a show-cause letter could lead to that situation, assuming Mr. Garcia reiterates the PSBank position that it does not want to run afoul of the foreign-currency deposits law, and majority of senator-judges are not satisfied with his letter. Whereupon Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, court presiding officer, had to make it clear that what it required of the witness is not a “show-cause” letter but a mere explanation.
Mr. Garcia is certainly not out of the woods yet, but already he has earned the admiration of many who saw his admirable demeanor on live television. Most court observers said they expected a “coniotic” bank executive in the mold of Ayala Avenue lords, and were pleased to see a man who epitomized your friendly, trustworthy neighborhood banker. Someone pleasant and humble—why, he even joked about consulting his counsel before greeting the court “good afternoon”—yet grim-faced when it came to declaring, repeatedly, that “if there’s any liability here, then let it be me [taking the blows].” This is why, he explained to the court, he had come alone to testify even though a PSBank branch manager was subpoenaed: being head of the institution, he alone should take the risk of criminal prosecution, or, in this case, a contempt citation.
In the trial room, though he looked anxious when caught off-guard by the cameras, Mr. Garcia stood tall, though surrounded by some of the nation’s best intellectuals. In the end, his sincerity and his well-articulated dilemma—one that surely all bank officials of the land identified with—persuaded, it seems, the court, to back off from Drilon’s hard line.
Whether the worst fears of some quarters that this case could spark a bank run, or a lawsuit, reminiscent of the events that ensued after the testimony of Equitable Bank’s Clarissa Ocampo and Citibank in the Estrada impeachment trial in 2001, is something still in the realm of speculation right now. Maybe people will understand, maybe they won’t. But already there’s a lot of grumbling among some businessmen about how the Corona trial is causing them ordeal as well, as in the case of banks caught in the crossfire of the Impeachment Court and the Supreme Court. Holy Week is still more than a month away, but it seems they’re feeling their “crown of thorns” too early.
Some relief might be forthcoming if prosecutors consider the suggestion to pin down Corona on the peso accounts alone, and abandon the foreign-currency accounts altogether—anyway, they keep saying there’s a huge discrepancy between the total balance of the peso accounts and what the Chief Justice filed in his SALN of 2010.
But until that happens, Mr. Pascual Garcia III will have to endure his agony in the Impeachment Court garden. He may draw comfort from the thought many ordinary folks out there are cheering him.
