What’s with the mystery behind the President’s SALN?
Corruption is never anything but conspiratorial. That’s an established fact.
To pull off a scheme even as simple as hiding one’s amassed wealth, one must have other players at his beck and call. Call it a team effort with each one playing varying roles.
So, what does the decision of the Office of the Ombudsman tell us when it refused to release the President’s Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) to lawyers who recently requested it?
It straightaway raises suspicion that whatever the President is hiding in his SALN is huge enough an issue that it even compelled the Office of the Ombudsman to bite the bullet if only to play along.
In fact, any threat of removal from his post hardly deterred the Ombudsman from sticking to his guns. In an interview with the Inquirer, the Ombudsman stressed, “I am willing to be removed from office if only to defend the Memorandum Circular that I issued last year.”
His reason? That his past SALN suffered from “unfair” public scrutiny.
Thus, with no great effort of his own, the Ombudsman ran roughshod the very purpose of his Office, which is to advance transparency in government.
Not only that, but this simple act of refusing access to the President’s SALN is a clear breach of Republic Act (R.A.) № 6713.
In Sec. 8, it says: Statements and Disclosure — “Public officials and employees have an obligation to accomplish and submit declarations under oath of, and the public has the right to know (emphasis, mine), their assets, liabilities, net worth and financial and business interests including those of their spouses and of unmarried children under eighteen (18) years of age living in their households.”
Why in Covid’s world would the Office of the Ombudsman go out of its way to defy existing laws just to keep the President’s SALN a huge secret?
Isn’t one of the duties and functions of the Office of the Ombudsman, as mentioned in R.A. № 6770, Sec. 15, to “investigate and prosecute on its own or on complaint by any person, any act or omission of any public officer or employee, office or agency, when such act or omission appears to be illegal, unjust, improper or inefficient”?
Now, the Ombudsman wants that law changed to fit his own notion of safeguarding officials from “unfair” criticism, even threatening to jail any and all who’d comment on the SALN.
This is totally absurd as there is strong provision in the Bill of Rights (Art. III, Sec. 4) not to abridge the public’s freedom of speech, including the freedom of the press.
The SALN being particularly referred to stands as the declaration of assets, liabilities and net worth of Rodrigo Duterte while serving in his capacity as President of the Republic. As a public official, Mr. Duterte’s SALN is public domain, yet he repeatedly defies existing laws, particularly R.A. 6713 Sec. 8, that say the public can have access to it.
The public’s right to know immediately requires the government, as a matter of law and duty, to act on that right regardless if the same woke up on the wrong side of the bed or not. And duty, by definition, and in relation to government service, comes with the force of a decree, not caprice.
Article II, Sec. 27: “The State shall maintain honesty and integrity in public service and take positive and effective measures against graft and corruption.” This provides context to Article II, Sec. 28. “Subject to reasonable conditions prescribed by law, the State adopts and implements a policy of full public disclosure of all its transactions involving public interest.”
It is not within the temperament of the State to hide, conceal, or lie when it comes to the wealth amassed by officials of government. Or worse, to make it difficult for the public to gain access to such information.
The State’s relation to the public is one of duty: to serve and protect. That includes all rights as well as the right to know.
Access to information is the most fundamental tenet of the relationship between the government and the governed, including all such information which may be crucial to the well-being of the nation.
One doesn’t need to ramp up a demolition job to assume that any glitch in the flow of information means there is an attempt to disguise a wrongdoing. The law itself, by reason of legal and logical inference, assumes that concealment of any matter pertaining to information which ought to be revealed — after it had been requested in accordance with law — may reveal manipulation. if not malpractice.
The Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act or R.A. 3019 is clear on this. Sec. 3(f) states that “Neglecting or refusing, after due demand or request, without sufficient justification, to act within a reasonable time on any matter pending before him for the purpose of obtaining, directly or indirectly, from any person interested in the matter some pecuniary or material benefit or advantage, or for the purpose of favoring his own interest or giving undue advantage in favor of or discriminating against any other interested party.”
So, why is the SALN important in the first place? Why the need to know?
As the official declaration of the assets, liabilities and net worth of officials in government, the SALN reveals “financial connections or business interests and identification of relatives within the fourth degree of consanguinity or affinity; further, it also requires the declarant to name his/her bilas, balae and inso who are in government service,” according to the FAQ sheet of the Civil Service Commission.
In other words, it provides the public an accounting of the stream of wealth that goes into the hands of officials and their families, and how such wealth is amassed. It is for the purpose of tracking anomalous, illegal, or corrupt transactions. It’s the lens we use to chase after much of the unseen bread crumbs officials may try to conceal under layers of legalese.
At this juncture, the Office of the Ombudsman is essential to unlocking this mystery. In late August, Malacañang, or more specifically, Palace spokesperson Harry Roque, left Duterte’s SALN in the hands of the Ombudsman, saying in a report by CNN Philippines, “We leave it to the Office of the Ombudsman, an independent constitutional body, to release to the public President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN).”
The Office of the Ombudsman denied the request of the lawyers based on the Ombudsman Memorandum Circular № 1, Series of 2020. The denial of access to Duterte’s SALN was also pushed regardless of the President’s Executive Order on the Freedom of Information which allows access to said data.
This clear violation of the SALN Law does two things: it not only conceals from public scrutiny Duterte and his family’s assets, liabilities and net worth, its deliberate suppression tells the public that Duterte can pretty much do whatever the hell he wishes with absolute impunity.
It creates the image of a “bulletproof” Duterte to whom accountability is nothing more than a fancy he can dispense with at will. It puts the President on a plinth much too high to be reached by law or any sense of lawful responsibility.
Under Duterte, the SALN becomes both a shield and a weapon. Everyone else in public office is vulnerable, with Duterte as the singular exception. Everyone else is left to think: If the President can go scot-free, why not me? Thus, the cycle of corruption and impunity remains.
I am, therefore, calling on the Office of the Ombudsman to reconsider its decision by reason of its mandate, existing laws, and duty to the public. The President’s SALN is within the purview of public interest.
Any deliberate concealment of the SALN for whatever reason creates a clear and present danger: it weakens all our democratic institutions, and an official’s sense of duty and pursuit of lawful conduct, and crushes the people’s right to access information, to the end that it would only trigger an endless cycle of crime and impunity.
