In Philippine Savings Bank vs. Senate Impeachment Court, G.R. No. 200238, Philippine Savings Bank (PS Bank) and its President, Pascual M. Garcia
III, filed before the Supreme Court an original civil action for certiorari and prohibition with application
for temporary restraining order and/or writ of preliminary injunction. The TRO
was sought to stop the Senate, sitting as impeachment court, from further implementing
the Subpoena Ad Testificandum et Duces Tecum, dated February
6, 2012, that it issued against the Branch Manager of PS Bank, Katipunan
Branch.
On February 9, 2012, the Court, voting 8-5-2, issued
a TRO enjoining the impeachment court from further implementing
the subpoena with respect to the foreign currency denominated accounts of CJ
Corona. Those who voted for the issuance of the TRO are Justices De
Castro, Brion, Bersamin, Abad, Villarama, Perez, Mendoza and Reyes. Dissenting were Justices Carpio, Peralta, Del Castillo,
Sereno and Bernabe. Chief Justice Corona and Justice Velasco inhibited.
The majority
opinion
In issuing the TRO, the Court majority held that a “clear
right to maintain the confidentiality of the foreign currency deposits of the
Chief Justice is provided under Section 8 of Republic Act No. 6426, otherwise
known as the Foreign Currency Deposit Act of the Philippines (RA 6426). This law establishes the absolute
confidentiality of foreign currency deposits[.]” There is only a single exception to the secrecy of foreign
currency deposits, according to the majority, and that is, disclosure is
allowed only upon the written permission of the depositor.
In this case, neither the
prosecution nor the Impeachment Court has presented any such written waiver by
the alleged depositor, Chief Justice Renato C. Corona. Also, while impeachment may be an exception to the secrecy of
bank deposits under RA 1405, it is not an exemption to the absolute
confidentiality of foreign currency deposits under RA 6426. Thus, the
Court issued a TRO against the impeachment court.
The dissent of Justice Carpio
Justice Carpio wrote a dissenting opinion and opined that the foreign currency
accounts of Chief Justice Corona are not covered by Sec. 8 of RA No. 6426. Because
of this, petitioners PS Bank and its President, Pascual M.
Garcia III, will not
suffer grave and irreparable injury by the implementation of the subpoenas issued
by the impeachment court. Thus, the prayer for TRO must be denied.
According
to Justice Carpio, the “whereas”
clause of PD No.
1246, which inserted the current Sec. 8 into RA 6426, expressly declares that the secrecy of foreign currency
deposits under Section 8 of RA No. 6426 is intended to protect “depositors who are non-residents”
because the purpose of the secrecy is to “encourage the inflow of foreign currency deposits” to Philippine
banks from such “depositors who are
non-residents.” His thesis is that as regards Philippine citizens
who hold foreign currency deposits with local banks, the secrecy applicable is
that provided by RA 1405, the general law on
secrecy of bank deposits, and not Sec. 8 into RA 6426. Under Section 2 of RA
No. 1405, “all deposits of whatever nature with banks xxx may be examined,
inquired or looked into xxx in cases of impeachment.” Thus, there is
no question that the impeachment court can pry open the foreign currency
accounts of impeachable officers.
Justice Carpio provided what he calls an “even a more compelling
legal ground why the foreign currency accounts in question are not confidential,”
thus:
xxx. Section 8 of
RA No. 6713, as amended, mandates the disclosure of the assets
of government officials and employees who “have an obligation” to
disclose their assets. Moreover, Section 8 expressly states that “the public
has the right to know the assets” of government officials and employees.
xxx.
xxx xxx xxx
Thus, government officials and employees have the “obligation” to
disclose their assets to the public, and the public has “the right to know”
the assets of government officials and employees. This “obligation” of government officials and
employees to disclose all their assets is absolute and has no exception.
The right of the public to know the assets of government officials and
employees is also absolute and has no exception.
What the majority has ruled is that government officials and
employees have no obligation to disclose their foreign currency
accounts, and that the public has no right to know such
foreign currency accounts. This completely violates Section 8 of RA No.
6713. The majority ruling invents an exception that is not found in Section 8
of RA 6713. This exception renders Section 8 of RA 6713 useless. Government
officials and employees can simply open foreign currency accounts and deposit
all their cash in such accounts. Then they no longer have the “obligation”
to disclose their cash assets, and the public no longer has “the right to
know” such assets.
Section 8 of RA No. 6713 is a much later law than Section 8 of RA No.
6426. The repealing clause of RA No. 6713
states that “all laws, decrees and orders or parts thereof inconsistent
herewith, are deemed repealed or modified accordingly, unless
the same provide for a heavier penalty.” Since
there is an irreconcilable inconsistency between
Section 8 of RA No. 6713 and Section 8 of RA No. 6426, the later law, which is
RA No. 6713, prevails. In
short, the government
officials and employees’ “obligation” to disclose their assets, and the
people’s “right to know” such assets, as expressly mandated by Section 8
of RA No. 6713, prevails over the secrecy of foreign
currency deposits under Section 8 of RA No. 6426, granting that such secrecy
applies to Philippine citizens.
Incidentally, Chief
Justice Renato C. Corona has publicly admitted that he owns the
foreign currency accounts in question. xxx.
With this admission that he owns
the foreign currency accounts in question, Chief Justice Corona has the “obligation”
to disclose these foreign currency assets to the people, who have “the right
to know” his assets.
The dissent
of Justice Sereno
Justice Sereno likewise wrote a dissenting opinion and
held that in the present case,
petitioners failed to show an actual existing right that is violated or
threatened with violation, a condition for the issuance of a TRO. The issuance by the
Impeachment Court of a subpoena relating to the alleged FCDs of therein
respondent Chief Justice Renato C. Corona does not entitle petitioners to a
preliminary injunctive relief.
The thesis of Justice Sereno: since anyone has yet to claim ownership of the
subject 5 foreign currency deposits (FCDs), petitioners cannot prematurely
invoke the privilege of absolute confidentiality. The confidential nature of the FCDs
is extended only in favor of the owner of the account. Stated differently, it
is only the depositor who may invoke the confidentiality privilege and the
exception thereto. In the present case, the prosecution alleges that the FCD
accounts are owned by the Chief Justice, while the defense denies his ownership
of the same. The documents relating to these accounts were in fact subpoenaed
to ascertain whether the Chief Justice is the named depositor therein. Thus, until the ownership of these
FCDs is established, the confidentiality privilege under R.A. 6426 is yet to
attach. And until there is a clear claim by the Chief Justice of
ownership of the 5 FCDs, the Court has to consider that there exists an implied
denial of ownership of any bank account containing money beyond what is
disclosed in the Chief Justice’s SALN.
Justice
Sereno
also submitted an interesting proposition: because
the Chief Justice is a public officer, he is constitutionally and statutorily
mandated to perform a positive duty to disclose all of his
assets and liabilities. This already operates as the consent
required by law. When a public officer affixes his signature on his Oath of Office, he
embraces all his constitutional and statutory duties as a public officer, one
of which is the positive duty to disclose all of his assets
and liabilities. Thus, for all public officers, what is absolute is not
the confidentiality privilege, but the obligation of disclosure.
According to the
lady Justice, public interest must be held paramount over private or economic
concerns. She argued:
Even if this Court were to accept
the mistaken view of petitioners that they need to secure a written consent to
disclose the alleged FCD accounts, the circumstances of this case would
nevertheless warrant their exemption from the confidentiality rule of Sec. 8 of
R.A. 6426.
Granting the prayer of
petitioners for injunctive relief is tantamount to endorsing their position on
absolute confidentiality, so much so that higher values, such as public
accountability, cannot even be considered as a valid exception to the said
privilege. This contention pushes the law to an
absurdity, as the adherence to this absolutist stance invites unscrupulous
public officers to convert their peso deposits to foreign currency accounts in
order to hide from the law and evade criminal liability. As a result,
R.A. 6426 is used as a shield to conceal malfeasance and other unlawful
conduct. This Court’s Resolution has therefore created a safe haven for
criminal acts and cultivated an atmosphere of impunity. Certainly, this was
never the intendment of the law.
In the
end, this Court’s Resolution results in an iniquitous situation, where the supreme interest of the public to
maintain accountability among public officers is relegated to the
sidelines in favor of a statutory
privilege that arose purely out of economic considerations. Considering
that petitioners’ alleged entitlement to the injunctive relief is based on mere
news reports, exaggerated theories of a possible bank run, or stubborn fears of
culpability, this Court has no basis to enjoin the Impeachment Court from exercising
its constitutional mandate to require the production of documents and the
rendering of testimony before it under the assailed subpoena.
The concurring opinion of Justice Brion
Justice Brion concurred with the majority
ruling and refuted the dissents in his separate concurrence. In his concurring opinion, he argued that the
decisions in Salvacion vs. Central Bank, China Banking Corporation vs. CA and Ejercito vs. Sandiganbayan, which were cited to support the claim that the rule on
absolute confidentiality of foreign currency deposits has been relaxed or liberalized,
are inapplicable in this case. He noted:
The impact of the principle of stare decisis that
is cited as basis is limited; specific judicial decisions are binding only on
the parties to the case and on future parties with similar or identical factual
situations. As will be explained below, the cited cases do not share the same
factual antecedents as the present case.
First, the Court in Salvacion made it
abundantly clear that because of the “peculiar circumstances” obtaining in the
case, the rule that exempts dollar deposits (of a transient) from attachment,
garnishment, or any other order or process of any court, legislative body,
government agency or any administrative body, cannot serve as an instrument of
injustice and deprive a Philippine national who is the victim of a heinous
crime of the damages awarded to her by the court. The “peculiar circumstances” in Salvacion hardly
obtains in the present case, so that the ruling cannot be applied to Chief
Justice Corona’s impeachment trial.
Second, in China Bank, the Court ruled
that the respondent, as owner of the funds (dollar deposit checks) unlawfully
taken and which were deposited in China Bank, had the right to inquire into the
said deposits because his consent was deemed given. From this
perspective, China
Bank is an
example of the waiver done by the rightful owner of the
absolute confidentiality of foreign currency deposits. This
situation does not obtain in the present case. At any rate,
the Court also admitted that due to the distinctive circumstances attendant to
the case, its ruling was on a limited pro hac vice. This
express limitation negates any application of the ruling to the present case,
save only if the facts of this ruling are similar or identical to Chief Justice
Corona’s case, which they are not.
Third, Ejercito does
not involve foreign currency deposits and, therefore, should
be rejected outright as a ruling applicable to the present case. In Ejercito,
the Court held that the petitioner’s accounts are no longer protected by RA No.
1405 (Secrecy of Bank Deposits Law) because of the presence of two exceptions,
namely: (1) the examination of bank accounts is upon order of a competent court
in cases of bribery or dereliction of duty of public officials (plunder case
against the petitioner is analogous to bribery or dereliction of duty) and (2)
the money deposited or invested is the subject matter of litigation. Aside
from the involvement of local currency deposits and the inapplicability of RA
No. 1405 to a foreign currency deposit situation, the two exceptions are not
present in the Chief Justice’s present impeachment case.
Justice
Brion also took
issue with the thesis of Justice Carpio that
the “whereas” clause of PD No. 1246, which inserted the current Sec. 8 into RA
6426, justify the non-application of the absolute confidentiality rule, thus:
Reference to the “whereas”
clause to justify the non-application of the absolute confidentiality rule,
however, is unnecessary and inappropriate in light of the clear language of RA
No. 6426. “Preambles,
or ‘whereas clauses’ x x x are not part of the act x x x and consequently
‘cannot enlarge or confer powers, nor control the words of the act, unless they
are doubtful or ambiguous.’” Stated otherwise, as a tool for statutory construction, preambles and
“whereas” clauses may be utilized only if an ambiguity exists in the statute. In Echegaray
v. Secretary of Justice, this Court had occasion to declare:
a preamble is not really an integral part of a law. It is
merely an introduction to show its intent or purposes. It is merely
an introduction to show its intent or purposes. It cannot be the
origin of rights and obligations. Where the meaning of a statute is
clear and unambiguous, the preamble can neither expand nor restrict its
operation, much less prevail over its text.
RA No. 6426, by its plain terms,
is clear that all foreign currency deposits are considered to be absolutely
confidential. The law expressly refers to deposits not to the
identity, nationality, or residence of the depositors. Thus, to claim that
the depositors must be considered is misplaced. Also, to so claim is to read into
the clear words of the law exemptions that its literal wording does not
support. To so claim may even amount to judicial legislation.
In light of the express and
clear terms of the law, the basic rule of statutory construction should
therefore apply: “legislative intent is to be determined from the language
employed, and where there is no ambiguity in the words, there is no room for
construction.” In the absence of ambiguity, the Court may not construe a law’s
provisions by taking into account questions of expediency, good faith,
practical utility and other similar reasons so as to relax non-compliance
therewith.
Justice Brion noted that the Court had previously ruled that bank
accounts laws are not covered by the right to information under Article III,
Section 7 and the requirement of full public disclosure under Article II, Section 28 of the Constitution, which is
statutorily implemented through RA No. 6713 (Code of Conduct and Ethical
Standards for Public Officials and Employees). The
Constitution in fact declares that the public’s right to information is
“subject to such limitations as may be provided by law.” The implied repeal of inconsistent laws that RA
No. 6713 mandates cannot be interpreted as a repeal of the express substantive
right granted to confidentiality under Section 8 of RA No. 6426, even if the
latter was enacted earlier. Implied repeals are not favored; the presumption is
against inconsistency or repugnance and, accordingly, against implied repeals.
He added:
The ruling in Republic v. Eugenio, to my mind, reflects the
prevailing view under our jurisprudence pointing towards the retention and
dominance of the absolute confidential nature of bank deposits. In
the recent case of BSB Group, Inc. v. Go (a 2010 case), the
Court reiterated the importance of “financial privacy.” As observed
by Tajan, despite the multiplication
of the exceptions to bank secrecy, the Court declared that bank secrecy, which
falls within the legally-recognized zones of privacy, remains the general rule
and that the “present
legal order is obliged to conserve the absolutely confidential nature of bank
deposits.” The Court found disfavor in construing the exceptions in
a manner that authorizes unwarranted and unbridled inquiry into bank accounts.
Finally, Justice Brion averred that Justice
Carpio’s view that the majority’s TRO is “a mockery of all existing laws
designed to insure transparency and good governance in public service” is not
well taken. This view, said Justice
Brion, declares that “the majority ruling advises all government officials
and employees that they can legally evade reporting their actual assets in
their Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth x x x by simply opening
foreign currency deposit accounts with local banks.” He summed up the import of
the issuance by the Court majority of the TRO:
xxx. The
question the Court has resolved for now is whether the facts and the law
justify the issuance of a TRO. The object of a TRO, as earlier
mentioned, is to simply maintain the status quo. The
TRO, to be sure, is not a ruling encouraging public officials to use foreign
deposits to legally evade the correct SALN report. To so claim is to
extend the import of TRO beyond its clear objective to maintain the status
quo.
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