A WITNESS of the prosecution panel confirmed that Chief Justice Renato Corona and his wife Cristina were able to get a cash advance amounting to P11 million from a dissolved company owned by the latter.

At the resumption of the impeachment trial yesterday, the prosecution presented Benito Cataran, director of the registration and monitoring department of Securities and Exchange Commission, who testified that the Corona couple were able to get a cash loan from Basa-Guidote Enterprises Inc.  on May 2003.

The discrepancy, according to the prosecution group, is that the license or certificate of registration of the company was already revoked on April 22, 2003, thus the company was already dissolved.

“Our theory is that there could not be a transaction between the company and the chief justice because the corporation has already been dissolved,” Prosecutor Rep. Reynaldo Umali.

The prosecution likewise said that the P11 million cash advance was of a “fictitious character.”

“What we are trying to prove is precisely this alleged cash advance is fictitious for so many reasons,” Umali added.

While the liability was declared in the Statement of Assets,Liabilities and Net worth (SALN) of Corona from 2005 to 2009, the prosecution still questioned the truthfulness and accuracy of the entries.

The prosecution questioned how Corona was extended the cash advance when the SEC had already revoked the registration of the lending company in 2003, the same year the chief magistrate claimed to have received the amount.

Catarman testified that BGEI ceased to operate legally by 2007 or three years after its registration had been canceled as the law gives a three-year grace period for revoked companies to wind up their affairs.

Catarman said the SEC decided to revoke the company’s certificate of registration after finding out that it had not been submitting its general information sheet (GIS) and financial reports since 1991.

Based on its last GIS submitted in 1990, BGEI’s stockholders were Jose N. Basa, Rose Reymunda Basa, Cecilia H. Basa, Concepcion Basa, Flor Maria Basa, Asuncion Basa Roco, and Vicente Roco.

Umali noted that the name of either Corona or his wife Cristina did not appear in the BGEI’s GIS. “So how can there be advances to somebody who’s not even a shareholder in the corporation?” Umali asked.

The prosecution said Cristina‘s relatives had questioned the cash advance the chief magistrate got from their company.