SC junks BIR request for SALNs of justices

By: Christian V. Esguerra - 10 years ago

Bureau of Internal Revenue building. AFP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–Supreme Court justices have rejected a six-month-old Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) request for copies of their statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs) to “determine if they paid the right taxes.”

BIR Commissioner Kim Henares on Wednesday slammed the decision, saying the magistrates were “creating an exception for themselves.”

“The law applies to everyone, no exception. Why create exception for themselves?” Henares told the Inquirer, which obtained a copy of the one-page notice from the tribunal signed by clerk of court Enriqueta Vidal.

In a June 17 resolution, the Supreme Court denied the BIR request “for lack of sufficient basis.”

Other measures

Henares said she had yet to decide whether to file another request. In case the Supreme Court denied it again, she said the BIR would “take other measures” to determine if the magistrates had no standing tax obligations.

“It would be harder without the SALNs but it could still be done,” she said.

Henares said the request had nothing to do with the high court’s July 1 decision declaring President Aquino’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) unconstitutional.

No harassment

“The request was sent December 2013 lest the [Supreme Court] say that this is part of harassing them,” she said. “It is not, because it was sent long before all this controversy.”

Aquino assailed the justices for ruling against the DAP, warning of a possible “collision” between the executive and the judiciary, which would require the “intervention” of the administration-controlled legislature.

The magistrates have publicly ignored the President’s repeated threats, but Supreme Court employees wore either red or black shirts on Monday to condemn what they considered Aquino’s dictatorial tendencies.

Offshoot of Corona trial

Henares said her request covered the SALNs of all Supreme Court justices from 2003 to 2012. She said the move was the “offshoot” of the impeachment trial of then Chief Justice Renato Corona in 2012 and allegations that a certain “Ma’am Arlene” had been fixing cases at the high tribunal.

“We are determining if they paid the right tax or not and applying the same standard we applied to Justice Corona to everyone else,” Henares said.

“What are they hiding? We made the request to determine whether they paid the right taxes (as all other taxpayers),” Henares said of the justices.

Aquino publicly campaigned for the ouster of Corona, who was eventually convicted by senators sitting as judges after the four-month-long impeachment trial in 2012.

The senators ruled that Corona committed a culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayed the public trust by failing to declare some $2.4 million in bank deposits, excluding a commingled amount supposedly worth P80.7 million, in his SALNs from 2002 to 2010.

Some of these senators are now under fire for receiving millions of pesos for projects, drawn from DAP funds, months after they voted to convict Corona. Malacañang has denied bribing the senators.

Setback

Henares was upset that the Supreme Court rejected a request for SALNs coming from a government agency. She said the denial was a “setback in the campaign for reform through transparency and accountability.”

“I believe the law is very clear, that everyone who is with the government is required to file their SALN and to provide copies thereof upon request, especially if another government agency requests for it,” she said.

“The SALN law was put in place to ensure transparency and accountability of government official[s] and staff, and I believe all branches of government are subject to the same standard and rules. Why should it be different for another branch of government?”

Originally posted at 9:37 pm | Wednesday, July 23, 2014