The much ballyhooed public access to a government official’s SALN (Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth) is a welcome development only if we can presume that the SALN paints a true picture of that official’s net worth.
But first, let me digress and ask why does the Ombudsman rush to announce what might only be a preventive measure against future anomalies. This may not be as obvious a diversionary tactic as prioritizing the re-opening of the Pharmally case but it is still a disingenuous way of delaying the inevitable for some very highly placed officials.
His office ought to be churning out immediate and direct moves against the present anomaly’s perpetrators. His priority job as Ombudsman is to prosecute primarily senators and congressmen who made lots of money from their budget insertions.
But back to the SALN… the problem is we cannot presume the SALNs are factual. These documents are self-made, self-declared and can arguably be presumed to have been window-dressed to conform to applicable laws. Why else would Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin require a legitimate purpose for a Cabinet official’s SALN to be released? How open is open when they themselves decide what is legitimate and what is not? If they have nothing to hide, why can’t the public be simply curious if BBM’s SALN, for instance, includes the P203.8 billion tax liability of the Marcos family?
The public’s access to SALN looks more like access to falsehood and nothing to be excited about. A fellow columnist has suggested guidelines on how to read and examine a SALN. But what is more crucial is a way of detecting how much of a SALN is truth and how much is fabrication.
Incidentally, the same is true of campaign expense reports. Has any winning candidate ever been disqualified or otherwise sanctioned for spending an amount more than what the law allows? The answer to that is zero, zilch, nil, nada. All campaign expense reports are seen to comply with the law because they contain nothing but lies. How can they not be lies when everybody knows how expensive radio, print and TV ads can be? Besides that, everybody knows how much candidates spend to feed and transport voters and buy their votes.
What about the hefty donations they get from “supporters”? Don’t tell me they don’t use the money to buy votes or otherwise spend for their election campaign. Yet their campaign expense reports are all in order. Naturally, that’s according to a Commission on Elections that is loyal to its appointing bosses and not to the Filipino people.
Public access to SALN is access to lies. Public officials lie to their teeth in their SALN and campaign expense reports. They have been playing us for fools but we have been more foolish to allow them to play us. In fact, we have really been very stupid to accept lying and cheating as the normal way government gets things done.
No, Virginia, what the country needs is not access to lies but elimination of liars in government. Just don’t ask me if it can be done and how. That’s the Ombudsman’s job.