SALN has no currency

The Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) of a public official is their main document for transparency. They are to be “available for inspection at reasonable hours” and for copying or reproduction in accordance with Republic Act 6713, the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.

Yet, the document is practically worthless since it does not truly reflect the wealth of a public official, who is not expected to reveal their actual financial standing.

During the Duterte administration, Ombudsman Samuel Martires issued a memo requiring a notarized letter of consent from the official concerned before their SALN could be released. The intent, according to Martires, was to prevent SALNs from being exploited for political ends.

Two instances when SALNs were used for political ends were the impeachment of two Supreme Court chief justices, Maria Lourdes Sereno and Renato Corona.

Before being ousted through a quo warranto petition, Sereno faced a charge of making untruthful declarations in her SALN.

The impeachment complaint alleged that Sereno failed to include in her SALN the P37 million in lawyer’s fees she received from the Philippine government as one of the private lawyers in the landmark Philippine International Air Terminals Co. (Piatco) case.

Sereno was part of the team in the case against Piatco that was prosecuted in international arbitration courts, including in Singapore.

The House Committee on Justice found probable cause but the impeachment process was overtaken by the quo warranto petition, which focused more on Sereno’s failure to submit complete SALNs to the JBC.

Corona, on the other hand, was alleged to have been remiss in his SALN declarations, failing to reveal his dollar accounts.

The argument raised during the Corona impeachment trial was the Foreign Currency Deposit Act (FCDA), which mandates the secrecy of accounts, rendered the SALN law and the constitutional provisions on full disclosure useless since “corrupt public officials can open dollar accounts and co-mingle peso accounts with their relatives to file SALNs that are completely and totally inaccurate.”

Up to now, there has been no proof of the alleged hidden or undeclared wealth of Corona. However, he was removed from office after a vote of 20-3 on his guilt in the second impeachment article, which was his failure to declare his SALN truthfully.

The Senate vote, however, was suspected to have been influenced by Malacañang, as then Budget Secretary Butch Abad later confirmed, through the distribution of P1.07 billion to the senators who voted to convict Corona.

Two senators who voted to acquit him, Bongbong Marcos and Miriam Defensor Santiago, did not receive anything, according to Abad.

The former budget chief conceded that the amount came from the Palace through the Disbursement Acceleration Program which was supposedly President Noynoy Aquino’s economic stimulus fund.

In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that the measures undertaken to create the fund were unconstitutional.

Through both moves to oust a serving head of the judiciary, the SALN was weaponized, highlighting the document’s vulnerability to political misuse.

Still, it served as a good example of how selective political persecution can be introduced by granting the government excessive police powers.