THE Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism looked at patterns of compliance by public officials with provisions of the Constitution and anti-graft laws requiring the full and prompt disclosure of their Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth or SALN.  In its latest report, the PCIJ said there was “creative defiance of the law” all round, especially by the Office of the President and members of Congeress, particularly 185 of the 188 House impeachers.

The PCIJ reported: “By  the records of the PCIJ in securing SALNs since 2006, the sorry picture that emerges is one of rank non-compliance -- or creative defiance of the law -- not just by the justices of the Supreme Court from 1992, but also by the members of the 15th Congress, the executives of the constitutional commissions, the Office of the Vice President, and the star-rank officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, among others.”

“And yet, in one of the eight articles of impeachment against Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, the 188 members of the House of Representatives who signed the complaint censured him for refusing to disclose his SALN,” the PCIJ said.

“By their act, the House members raised a virtual Sword of Damocles over those in public office who insist on keeping the full details of their SALNs secret.

“But the House accusers could well be accused of a similar omission, and culpable violation of the Constitution and anti-graft laws.”

Senate exemplary

The PCIJ’s records from 2006 to December 2011 reveal a pattern of non-disclosure of SALNs by senior officials from all the branches of the government, except for the Senate.  Most exemplary in its compliance with the law, the Senate has consistently disclosed copies of the asset records of all its members over the last decades, including of those who will now sit as judges in Corona’s  impeachment trial.

“Yet still, defiance of the SALN law has been shown as well by the Office of the Ombudsman under Aquino appointee Conchita Carpio-Morales, a retired Supreme Court associate justice who became Ombudsman in July 2011. Her office has rebuffed an omnibus request that the PCIJ filed in September 2011 to secure the SALNs of officials that many agencies had denied since 2006,” the PVIJ reported.  After the report, the Ombudsman complied.

“Carpio-Morales’s office to this day also insists on the rule that SALN requests have to be subscribed and sworn to before a prosecutor of the Ombudsman’s office, according to a controversial memorandum circular issued by her impeached predecessor Merceditas Gutierrez,” the PCIJ continued.

Only two congressmen

“If one’s failure to disclose his SALN is now an impeachable offense, then a long list of officials should also now be expunged from public office, including Ombudsman Carpio-Morales and by their own assertion, even 185 of the 188 members of the 15th Congress who filed the impeachment complaint against Corona but have not disclosed copies of their own SALNs.

“Thus far, only two of the 282 members of the 15th Congress have actually released copies of their 2010 SALN upon request: Mohammed Hussein P. Pangandaman (Lanao del Sur) and Maximo B. Rodriguez Jr. (PL-Abante Mindanao).  Neither is among the 188 signatories to the impeachment complaint that the House had submitted to the Senate impeachment court.”

The PCIJ was able to obtain the 2010 SALNs of five more members of the Lower House, including three who had signed the impeachment complaint against Corona. But that was only because their SALNs seem to have been mixed inadvertently with the asset records of the members of the 14th Congress that PCIJ was allowed to photocopy early this year.

Constitutional requirement

The legal requirement to file SALNs is found in the 1987 Constitution, in Republic Act 6713 (Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees), and in Republic Act 3019 (Anti Graft and Corrupt Practices Act), writes Nepomuceno Malaluan, a co-director of the Institute for Freedom of Information.

“The earliest of these laws, RA 3019 (Sec. 7), requires that “every public officer, within thirty days after assuming office and, thereafter, on or before the fifteenth day of April following the close of every calendar year, as well as upon the expiration of his term of office, or upon his resignation or separation from office, shall prepare and file with the office of the corresponding Department Head, or in the case of a Head of Department of Chief of an independent office, with the Office of the President, a true detailed and sworn statement of assets and liabilities, including a statement of the amounts and sources of his income, the amounts of his personal and family expenses and the amount of income taxes paid for the next preceding calendar year.”

“While RA 3019 does not provide for an express duty to disclose SALNs to the public, this duty was subsequently made a requirement by the 1987 Constitution for the highest officials and for lower-ranking officials, by RA 6713.

Disclosure mandated

“Article XI, Section 17 of the 1987 Constitution, in addition to reiterating the requirement for public officers or employees to submit their SALNs, required that the declaration by the President, the Vice-President, the Members of the Cabinet, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Commissions and other constitutional offices, and officers of the armed forces with the general or flag rank, “shall be disclosed to the public in the manner provided by law.”

“The requirement to disclose was extended by RA 6713 to all public officials and employees. Section 8 of RA 6713 provides that ‘public officials and employees have an obligation to accomplish and submit declarations under oath of, and the public has the right to know, their assets, liabilities, net worth and financial and business interests including those of their spouses and of unmarried children under eighteen years of age living in their households.’

“The manner of disclosure of SALNs is in turn provided by Section 8 (C). Subtitled ‘accessibility of documents,’ it provides that SALNs shall be made available for inspection at reasonable hours, and for copying or reproduction after 10 working days from the time they are filed, subject to the payment of a reasonable fee to cover the cost of reproduction and mailing of such statement, as well as the cost of certification. Complementing this duty to disclose is the people’s right to information guaranteed under the Bill of Rights.”

In short, the existing laws on SALNs of public officials imposes at least three main obligations: to make a truthful declaration, to submit such declaration, and for the custodian to publicly disclose them in the manner provided by RA 6713.