Justices, lawmakers keep SALNS secret
IN ONE of the eight articles of impeach- ment 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 statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth or SALN.
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. Indeed, the PCIJ’S records from 2006 to December 2011 reveal a sorry picture of rank nondisclosure of SALNS not just by Corona and all the justices of the high court since 1992, but also by the incumbent House members who have brought him to trial.
Worst, 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.
If one’s failure to disclose SALNS 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 disclosed 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.
Summary compliance?
Last year, in apparent creative defiance of Republic Act No. 6713, or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials – which requires disclosure to the public of the actual copies of SALNS – the House merely issued a public release on the summaries of the net worth of the House members.
This is even as the PCIJ had filed four request letters for SALNS of the members of the 15th Congress from