Aquino, execs fear discovery of financial skeletons

No sooner had the ink dried on the order of the Supreme Court opening the statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) of judges to public scrutiny than Malacañang and its allies in Congress made a mockery of President Aquino’s election campaign pledge that he would be transparent about his assets.

Administration officials and Congress supporters claimed that the President was exempted from making a disclosure of his bank accounts after he signed a waiver to open his accounts in his SALN.

In a speech in Iloilo City on Friday, four days after the Senate impeachment court found Chief Justice Renato Corona guilty of betrayal of public trust for failing to disclose all his bank accounts in his SALN, Mr. Aquino himself brushed aside calls for disclosure of his bank assets in light of the impeachment court’s decision. “What should I sign?” he said. “I have already signed the waiver in the SALN.”

The speech set the tone for officials not to rush to sign waivers lifting the secrecy on their assets and bank accounts in contravention of the tenor of the impeachment court’s decision, which declares the law requires nothing less than full disclosure of assets to fulfill the constitutional criteria on disclosure.

In his valedictory speech explaining his “guilty” vote on Corona, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile pointed out that the 1987 Constitution, in Article 11, Section 17, provided that “a public officer or employee shall, upon assumption of office and as often as may be required by law, submit a declaration under oath of his assets, liabilities and net worth.”

Some lawyers were quick to point out that public officials were required to submit their SALN every year.

Where then did the President get the idea that after he had submitted his SALN upon taking office in 2010 that the waiver he signed was an umbrella that covered all the years until he ends his term of “transparency and accountability in public office.”

In his speech explaining his guilty vote on Corona, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano called on Mr. Aquino to “instruct his Cabinet to sign waivers or resign. Lead by following, or get out of the way. … Executive, legislative, judiciary, Commission on Audit, [Commission on Elections], Bureau of Internal Revenue, Customs, judges, governors, mayors, barangay  captains, congressmen, senators, let us agree on one standard.”

All dodge challenge

The challenge fell on deaf ears, except for a few. All dodged the challenge, taking their cue from the presidential pronouncement.

Only the Supreme Court responded. It decided en banc to order all justices and judges to make public their SALN for 2001.

This is a positive sign of the judiciary’s political will to clean up itself after receiving excessive battering from the executive and legislative branches for six months during the impeachment trial of the Chief Justice—in a conspiratorial campaign that resulted in a crippling imbalance of power among the three supposedly coequal branches of Philippine democracy.

Instead of creating a bandwagon for this new “paradigm” of accountability and transparent governance, the call met a stonewall and iron curtain of resistance, excuses and evasions from the regime emboldened by the impeachment court’s decision to dismiss Corona.

The Palace’s decision to ignore, if not disregard, the clamor for the President and his officials to disclose their assets sparked a stampede to look for loopholes to avoid compliance with the impeachment court’s decision.

The stonewall of the regime to continue to clamp a tight lid on the assets and bank accounts of officials, especially starting from the top of the pyramid, opened the regime to criticism that it was applying a double standard of justice and rule of law—under which the regime initiates the prosecution of citizens tagged as standing in the way of its policies and determines the norms of the rule of law even as it declares itself not bound by decisions of institutions, such as the  impeachment court which conducted the trial.

Not on equal footing

Malacañang officials have contended that Corona and Mr. Aquino are not on the same footing, suggesting that it is not fair to make the Chief Executive respond to the Corona challenge to the President and officials who prosecuted the Chief Justice to come forward to lay bare their own assets.

Palace officials asked whether it was fair to put the President, who has not been accused of graft, who has not been accused of dishonesty, in the same category of the man who has just been removed from his post.

Under this proposition, the implication is that Mr. Aquino enjoys special treatment that puts him above the law applicable to all citizens.

The impeachment court’s decision did not make such qualifications when it declared that all officials are required to submit their SALN, which, according to the administration’s point of view, contains a waiver that authorizes the Ombudsman to look into the officials’ bank accounts.

All that Cayetano proposed in his new “paradigm of transparency” was waivers for all executive officials, members of Congress and the judiciary, with the President leading the way by example.

The issue of waivers came to a head after Corona submitted one to the impeachment court, allowing overzealous government agencies, especially the Office of the Ombudsman, to exhume his assets and bank records, and discover discrepancies and leading the court to conclude that he did not declare all his  assets in his SALN.

In his unconditional and blanket waiver, Corona virtually signed his death warrant in the effort to show transparency. The waiver failed to save him. Corona dug his own grave with it.

Now, there is fear among officials that the waiver would uncover financial skeletons in their closets. Officials, starting with the President, are now scrambling frantically for excuses not to disclose their hidden assets that might be pried open by waivers.

The fear of disclosure heralds the coming of a colossal official coverup of assets.

Is there anyone who honestly believes that the results of Corona trial marked the dawn of a new era of financial transparency in Philippine governance?