MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV has filed a resolution urging the Senate to investigate the removal of information from the Statements of Assets Liabilities, and Net Worth of some Cabinet members of the Duterte administration.
Trillanes said that “in the spirit of transparency,” there should be no redaction in the SALNs of public officials and employees, just like the unabridged SALNs of senators that are available to the public.
The senator sees no problem if only a public official’s address was hidden or omitted in the SALN as this could easily be accessed by the public through other information sources.
But based on a report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, at least 28 Cabinet members submitted SALNS wherein their addresses and the acquisition costs of their personal and real properties were blacked out.
The PCIJ said Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar had the most number of SALN redactions.
The following were blacked out in Andanar’s SALN, according to the PCIJ: filer’s address; spouse’s office address; name, date of birth, and age of unmarried minor children; description of real properties; exact location of real properties; acquisition costs of real properties; acquisition costs/amounts of personal properties; outstanding balance of liabilities; business address of business interests and financial connections; and ID No. of filer and/or spouse.
Next to Andanar are Department of Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II and Department of Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Ubial, who each had nine blacked out pieces of information in their declarations.
Omitted in the Ubial and Aguirre’s SALNs were filer’s address; ID No. of filer and/or spouse; acquisition costs of real properties; acquisition costs/amounts of personal properties; exact location of real properties; outstanding balance of liabilities; and spouse’s office address.
Also blacked out in Aguirre’s SALN were the address of his business interests and financial connections and the description of his real properties.
In Ubial’s declarations, the following were also redacted: name of o her creditor and name, date of birth, and age of her unmarried minor children.
Special breed of filers?
Trillanes said the Senate needs to know whether there was a law violated with the SALN redactions, including the executive order on freedom of information issued by President Rodrigo Duterte.
The senator added that it appeared that there were a “special breed” of public officials and employees under the administration because the Office of the President did not question why they submitted redacted declarations.
On Monday, presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said Malacañang would be open to investigations.
“Again, I go back to the argument, to the reason given behind that certain items need to be kept private… If indeed there is an investigation that needs to be done, then it can be followed through, if these things are deemed suspect,” said Abella.
But according to Abella, the summarized amounts in the SALNs were “deemed sufficient by the law.”
“The full disclosure has been made regarding the summarized amounts…These disclosures are not meant to be the total disclosure of the thing,” he said.
