Palace: Duterte not obliged to share SALN to anyone

There is no legal requirement for President Rodrigo Duterte to provide media or anyone a copy of his Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN), Malacañang said Friday.

The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) recently reported about the failure of the Office of the Ombudsman and the Office of the President to provide the press a copy of Duterte’s SALN for 2018, nearly eight months after the deadline of its filing on April 30.

The report also said since the SALN Law was enacted in 1989, all five presidents before Duterte had publicly disclosed their annual asset statements “without fail, year on year.”

“The President has complied with what the Constitution or law requires - the timely submission of a declaration under oath of his assets, liabilities, and net worth,” presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said.

“Neither instrument requires the President to personally and directly furnish a copy thereof to the media or to whomever wants it. There is a mandated procedure under the law to access the same.”

The Palace advised the PCIJ to request the document from the Ombudsman, the repository of the original SALNs of the President, the Vice President and members of constitutional bodies.

Panelo said the Palace could not dictate on the Ombudsman “the course of action it wishes to undertake relative to such request given that the latter is a separate and independent institution that we have no control of.”

“We take strong exception to the thoughts bordering to innuendo of a few that the failures of the PCIJ in getting a copy of the President’s SALN can be ascribed to the President’s policy on transparency,” the Palace official said.

“Such accusation is baseless if not malicious.”

Freedom of Information

Executive Order No. 2 issued by Duterte on July 23, 2016 states: "Subject to the provisions contained in Sections 3 and 4 of this Order, all public officials are reminded of their obligation to file and make available for scrutiny their (SALN) in accordance with existing laws, rules and regulations, and the spirit and letter of this Order.”

As cited by the PCIJ report,  E.O. No. 2 also states: “There shall be a legal presumption in favor of access to information, public records and official records. No request for information shall be denied unless it clearly falls under any of the exceptions listed in the inventory or updated inventory of exceptions circularized by the Office of the President provided in the preceding section.”

According to PCIJ, its requests filed from June to November 2019 were denied because the Ombudsman has yet to finalize its new guidelines on the release of the SALNs of the President and other senior officials.

The new guidelines are not yet made public.

Transparency

GMA resident analyst Richard Heydarian had said that Duterte appears to be contradicting his own call for transparency and accountability from public officials by refusing to release his 2018 SALN months after the deadline for its filing.

“As much as it’s correct for the president to rail against the so-called oligarchs to fight against corruption, sana naman he starts also with himself about having more transparency about his own SALN,” Heydarian said in an episode of Stand for Truth.

Heydarian reminded that Duterte ran in 2016 under a campaign agenda of anti-illegal drugs and anti-corruption.  He added that transparency and accountability are important elements of the anti-corruption campaign.

He said the absence of the Duterte's SALN "will say a lot about how much transparency is being appreciated by the president."  —LDF, GMA News