Justice Antonio Carpio: Avignon penthouse condo not mine

 

In a letter addressed to the Philippine Daily Inquirer and obtained by GMA News Online, the magistrate said what his family owned at the Avignon Tower Condominium was not a penthouse unit but a unit just below the top floor.

 

"I wish to correct your front-page news article of January 10, 2012, and the column of Mr. Emil de Quiroz of January 12, 2012," Carpio said in the letter.

 

The Inquirer was one of the newspapers that ran the story about Carpio's supposedly ill-gotten Makati property along H.V. De la Costa Street in Salcedo Village. Reports have it that the property's price was pegged around P38 million.

 

"I do not own the so-called 800 square meter penthouse unit with a swimming pool... My family owns one of the two units on the floor below the penthouse, and there is no swimming pool in our unit.

 

In his letter, Carpio stressed that the 23-year-old condominium has been his home even before he joined the Supreme Court.

 

The justice also emphasized that their Avignon property is reported in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth.

 

Carpio was among the only two justices–the other one being Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno–who heeded a request to furnish copies of their SALN. The request was separately made by Kaya Natin! movement and Newsbreak. The two justices only release summaries of their SALN, saying that the issue on releasing SALN has yet to be tackled in an en banc session. – ELR/KG, GMA News