THE 2012 decision of the Senate impeachment court that removed then Supreme Court chief justice Renato Corona cited this as one of two reasons for convicting him: A court interpreter, Delsa Flores, was dismissed and barred from government service for her failure to disclose a market stall as her property in her SALN (statement of assets, liabilities and net worth). Corona should not be treated differently, the senator-judges ruled.
Corona admitted he kept P183 million in peso and dollar deposits, which he didn’t disclose in his SALN.
Twenty senators who voted to convict Corona believed the law should be applied to all.
The SALN did Corona and Flores in. But since then, has the law caught anyone else as big as, or bigger than, the chief justice?
Rodrigo Duterte, front-running candidate for president, is alleged to have stashed away at least P210 million in one bank account that he did not report in his 2014 SALN.
He has fumbled to get himself out of the mess: from outright denial to partial admission, from noisy indignation to the usual challenge (“sue us”). Dilly-dally, give limited access (account balance, no trail of transactions). Stonewall until after elections. As president, he could make the nightmare go away.
Not ‘gago’
Corona (who died of diabetes last April 29) went through some of Duterte’s stages of response. But Corona owned up the deposits, which was the other reason the Senate found him guilty. Digong has not given any hint of admitting the alleged amount of money. “Ano ako, gago” he said when asked to release his medical record.
Hiding wealth from the SALN is what led to the Corono bank accounts and now the Duterte deposits. But how would SALN be compared against bank deposits unless there’s access to both?
Bank secrecy laws, aimed principally to protect private wealth, also shield suspected stolen public assets. That’s what helps felons to get away.
r[paseares@gmail.com]