Ombudsman rejects De Lima bid to make Duterte SALN public

Samuel Martires, Leila de Lima and President Duterte

MANILA, Philippines — The Office of the Ombudsman has rejected the request of several lawyers to release a copy of President Duterte’s statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN), demonstrating yet again the difficulty of accessing information on the President’s wealth despite his public pronouncements about upholding government transparency.

In a Facebook post on Monday, lawyers Dino de Leon, Josef Garcia and Teddy Rigoroso — who filed their request on behalf of detained opposition Sen. Leila de Lima — said the Ombudsman rejected their request based on an earlier circular banning the release of SALNs without the subject’s authorization.

“Please be advised that Ombudsman Samuel R. Martires disapproved your request, pursuant to Ombudsman Memorandum Circular No. 1, Series of 2020,” Caroline de Leon, the officer in charge at the antigraft body’s central records section, said in a letter addressed to one of the lawyers.

The circular was issued by Martires, a Duterte appointee, to stop what he called the “weaponization” of these documents against public officials.

“Why are they so afraid to show the President’s SALN? If there is nothing to be afraid of, then there should be no cause for fear,” Dino De Leon said.

FOI request

The lawyers filed a freedom of information (FOI) request for Mr. Duterte’s SALN. In 2016, the President issued Executive Order No. 2, to operationalize legislation pertaining to freedom of information in the executive branch. It requires public officials to “file and make available for scrutiny’’ their SALNs in accordance with existing rules and regulations.

Initially, the lawyers filed the FOI request with the Office of the President but were told that it should be addressed through the Office of the Ombudsman, the official repository of public officials’ SALNs.

Mr. Duterte claimed in public that his SALN was available to anyone as long as Martires allows its release.

The lawyers sought a copy of the President’s SALN in the wake of the Senate blue ribbon investigation into Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp., a company that bagged over P8 billion worth of pandemic response supply contracts despite being only several months old and having a mere paid-up capital of P625,000.

A Senate hearing last week revealed Pharmally’s supposed connections to Michael Yang, a Chinese national who once served as Mr. Duterte’s economic adviser.

Withheld since 2018

“With the missing pandemic funds and the Pharmally corruption issue, it is important for us to access the SALN of our public officials, including the President’s,” De Leon said. “This is a fundamental part of public accountability and checks and balances against corruption.”

In April 2016, former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV alleged that Mr. Duterte, then still a presidential candidate, failed to declare a chunk of his wealth amounting to P211 million in his SALN.

In May 2017, after a request was made to then Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, Mr. Duterte’s 2016 SALN was finally released, showing an increase in his net worth from P24,080,094.04 in June 2016 to P27,428,862.44 in December that same year. The President then explained that the P3-million increase came from the excess campaign contributions he received.

Mr. Duterte’s last publicly available SALN was released in 2017 when he declared a net worth of P28.5 million as of December that year.

The President’s only liability, according to that statement, was a personal loan of P1 million from Davao businessman Samuel Uy.

His SALNs from 2018 to 2020 have yet to be made public.

In August 2021, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque maintained that the President “has complied with his constitutional duty to submit or file his SALN.’’

“Interested parties may therefore wish to write a formal communication to the Office of the Ombudsman, which has copies of SALNs of all public officials, asking for a copy of the said document,” Roque said.

—WITH A REPORT FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH