PCIJ wealth check

SALN files of 5 bets for president writ in opaque, loose, curious parts

MANILA, Philippines – They are multimillionaires, affluent and ambitious to the last.

On Monday, May 9, Filipinos will get to pick one among them to be president, and another to be vice president, of the nation.

The candidates themselves have tried to make it easier for voters to choose. Months ahead of the official campaign period, for instance, four of the five candidates for president and five of the six for vice president rolled out multibillion pesos worth of television ads to win the favor of the 55.7-million registered Filipino voters at home and overseas.

That kind of spending, of course, is alien to a majority of Filipino voters. Strapped by a lack of choices and resources, most Filipinos are so unlike the candidates who are invariably awash in wealth, status and perks.

Politics is writ in riddles, indeed. Why, for instance, should class wish to serve mass for a pittance? And a pittance it is, even with the salary standardization law that passed this year raising the president’s monthly salary to P400,000.

That adjustment in pay takes effect in the next administration. Until then, the country’s chief executive’s lawful monthly pay remains at about P120,000 before tax, or multiplied by 13 months, P1.56 million a year. That adds up to at most P9.36 million throughout his or her six-year full term equivalent to 78 months. And because that salary rate falls under the taxman’s 32-percent bracket, the president’s lawful salary, net of tax, has actually been much less, at just about P80,000 a month.

Yet, to get to power, a presidential or vice presidential candidate must burn billions. Today, political analysts say, a candidate for president may need from P3 billion to P5 billion to bankroll a decent election campaign across the nation.

Before the path to power, all the current candidates for the nation’s top two posts had taken a journey to wealth. By the available documents, though, their wealth stories are often opaque or wanting in clarity and detail, or even loose at the seams.

PCIJ looked at the state of wealth of the five candidates for president:

• Vice President Jejomar “Jojo” Binay of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA);

• Davao City Mayor Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) Party;

• Sen. Mary Grace Poe Llamanzares, of the Galing at Puso slate;

• Former local government secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II of the administration Liberal Party (LP); and

• Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago of the People’s Reform Party (PRP).

In their latest statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs) filed in April 2014, the presidential candidates of May 2016 have declared modest to a large net worth. Except for Duterte and Poe, however, the latest SALN for the year 2015 of the other candidates have yet to be released to the public.

To establish a baseline of wealth for each of the candidates, PCIJ reviewed the SALNs they had filed in prior years, starting with their respective first year in public service. Because some candidates had served longer in government, and others for just brief periods, the breadth or timeline of wealth could not be established in identical manner for all the candidates.

In the course of doing this story, PCIJ noticed that some of the candidates had close family members occupying or had occupied significant political posts. Available SALNs of these family members were therefore reviewed as well to come up with a more complete wealth narrative for the candidates.

The battle for the presidency is a five-way affair: three men (Binay, Duterte and Roxas) and two women (Poe and Defensor-Santiago) are slugging it out. Four of the five are incumbents (Binay, Duterte, Poe and Defensor-Santiago). The fifth, Roxas, quit his latest post as interior secretary in October 2015 to prepare for his presidential run.

All five wannabe-presidents declared big net worth values in their respective SALN for 2014. The latest available for Binay, Defensor-Santiago and Roxas were their 2014 SALN but PCIJ also obtained copies of the SALN for 2015 of Duterte and Poe.

As of their 2014 SALN, by order of claimed penury, by net worth, the “poorest” is Duterte with P21.9 million, followed by Binay with P60.25 million, Defensor-Santiago with P73.03 million, Poe with P89.5 million, and Roxas with P202.08 million.

(Duterte in his SALN for 2015 declared a slightly higher net worth of P23.5 million, as of last yearend.)

But as a group, how the wealth of the five presidentiables rose, fell, and rose again while in public office is a story with neither logic nor symmetry.

Two candidates – Poe and Roxas – listed properties inherited from their parents, or through court orders with zero acquisition value, thus artificially deflating or denting what might be the true expanse of their wealth.

A manual issued by the Civil Service Commission (CSC) on how to comply with “The SALN Law” or Republic Act No. 6713 (Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees) spells out the following modes of acquisition of real properties: purchase, donation, inheritance, trust, exchange, as a consequence of contract (tradition), occupation, intellectual creation, law or by order of the court, and prescription.

The CSC manual states, however, that “in case of purchase by installment of immovable, the equity and amortizations so far paid should be declared as Equity in Installment Purchases under Other Personal Property, rather than Real Property (even if the contract may be registered with the register of deeds).”

“It is only when the Real Property is fully paid and the title transfers to the buyer that the property is declared as a Real Property in the SALN,” the manual stated.

Too, there is a discernible shift from listing mostly real to more personal and other properties – which has less and weaker documentation, and thus could be easily hidden – in the SALNs that the five presidential candidates have filed through the years. The most notable signs of this shift to personal properties are the bursting “cash on hand/in bank” and investments in stocks they declared in their SALNs.

Then again, some of the candidates have also declared bigger and bigger amounts of liabilities to creditors or agencies not fully named in their SALN. Yet, despite their growing liabilities, these candidates have declared bigger net worth values through the years.

Grace Poe, Galing at Puso

According to the few SALNs she had filed in her short stint in public office – as chairperson of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) in 2010-2012, and as senator since 2013 – Grace Poe’s wealth story is one of unexplained progressively declining riches.

She started off with a net worth of P152.53 million in 2010. This slipped to P132.25 million in 2011, recovered to P148.9 million in December 2013, then skidded again to P89.46 million in 2014.

What is puzzling about Poe’s wealth is this: she has reduced the values of her real and other assets by a third to half in the last four years, even as she also managed to reduce her debts by a fourth during the same period.

In short, Poe has been declaring much less assets but also much less loans, and a net worth cut to half in four years alone. Why all the numbers in her SALN covering both her assets and her liabilities are going down, is an intractable equation.

During her first year in public office, Poe declared a mix of inherited (from her late father Fernando Poe Jr.’s estate) and acquired real properties worth P134.4 million, personal and other properties of P63.45 million, and liabilities of P45.31 million.

Four years later in 2014, all her numbers hit the doldrums for reasons not quite clear in her SALNs.

Last year, Poe put her real properties – all residential units – to be worth P95 million only (down P39.4 million or 29 percent less in value). She did not declare owning any commercial, agricultural, or mixed-use real estate.

In 2014, too, Poe’s personal and other properties also declined to P31.9 million (down P31.55 million or 49.7 percent less in value). Nonetheless, the amount included, she said, P22 million in investments in such entities as: JSP Realty and Development Corp.; 226 Wilson Development, Corp.; Chambrant L. Holdings Corp.; The Health Cube Rehabilitation and Wellness Center; AB Design Studio and Trading Corp.; Filinvest Land, Inc.; Sunlife Property Balanced Fund; San Miguel Corp. A; 226 Wilson Development, Corp., and FPJ Productions, Inc.

To make matters more confusing, in 2014, Poe’s indebtedness also declined from P45.31 million in 2010 to just P37.4 million, down nearly P8 million or 20 percent in a year’s time.

In her SALN for 2015, Poe declared a net worth of P89,118,760.02, assets of P125 million, and liabilities of P36 million.

As of Dec. 31, 2015, she said she owned a total of 30 real properties, including 14 pieces of mostly residential real properties she purchased from 1992 to 2010 with aggregate acquisition cost of P95,002,568.81.

The 14 included two house and lots in California, US – the first valued at P27,995,500 that Poe said she purchased in 1992, and the second valued at P15,074,500 that Poe said she purchased in 2008.

Poe gave only the “acquisition cost” of the two properties and left blank the columns for their “assessed value” and “current fair market value.”

In addition, Poe listed 16 other pieces of real assets – three commercial in nature, two agricultural, and 11 residential – for which she assigned zero acquisition cost.

She said all these 16 additional real properties were “inheritance” passed on to her in 2004, the year her father died.

Aside from real assets, Poe declared “personal and other properties” to be worth P30,656,423.16 in all, as of last yearend.

The amount included: a checking account she opened in 2011 with P862,099.92 balance; her husband’s checking account opened in 2006 with P474,183.57 balance; shares of stocks in nine various business entities acquired from 2006 to 2012; six vehicles; a “money market account” worth P96,415.17; and a foreign currency savings account opened in 2011 with P202,270.19.

Among her investments, Poe said she acquired in 2012 “shares of stocks (in) San Miguel Corporation A, by subscription – 8,500 shares.” Her SALN, however, had this notation for her stocks in San Miguel Corp.: “Divestment of stock began 19 APR 2016.”

Again by “inheritance,” Poe said she had shares of stocks in two more entities: P7,375,000 in 226 Wilson Development Corp. (7,375 shares valued at P1,000 per share), and in P2,235,772, at face value, in FPJ Productions, Inc.

Poe’s latest SALN did not enroll values for furniture and appliances, books, paintings, jewelry and other entries that typically appear in the SALNs of many other public officials.

Minus the real properties and shares of stocks that she declared to be “inheritance” for which she assigned zero acquisition cost, the senator’s total assets (real assets plus personal properties) amounted to P125,658,991.97.

Her net worth for 2015 came up to just P89.1 million because she had total liabilities of P36,540,231.95.

These liabilities included, she said, subscription balance payable to JSP Realty & Development Corp, 226 Wilson Development Corp., and Chambrandt L. Holdings Corp.; a lot installment payable; two automobile loans payable; and a personal loan from Jesusa S. Poe of P17,760,000.

Popularly known by her screen name Susan Roces, Jesusa S. Poe is the senator’s mother and the widow of Fernando Poe Jr.

Poe’s SALN for 2015 made two disclosures in an extra page: “P451,661.64, running balance of Cash in Bank as of 31 December 2015” of her minor children; and “P4,780,237.70, running balance of Cash in Bank as of 31 December 2015” of Jesusa S. Poe’s aggregate savings/checking account in which the senator said she is a “secondary/co-signee.”

Poe said she has been an officer/shareholder from 2006 to 2009 in FPJ Productions, JPS Realty and Development Corp., and 226 Wilson Development Corp.; and a shareholder in AB Design Studios and Trading Corp. and The Health Cube Rehabilitation and Training Center.

Poe said her husband Teodoro “Neil” Llamanzares is also an officer/shareholder in Chambrant L. Holdings Corp.

Jejomar Binay, United Nationalist Alliance

JEJOMAR “JOJO” BINAY marked his Year 1 in public office as OIC (officer-in-charge) mayor of the country’s premier financial district, Makati City, in 1989 with a net worth of only P2.9 million.

Twenty-five years hence in 2014, this grew to P60.2 million, but also a cumulative 20 times more from his first year in office. He has filed a total of 23 SALNs, copies of nearly all are on file at the PCIJ.

His 2014 net worth consists of the following entries: real properties valued at P13.92 million, personal and other properties of P62.38 (total assets: P76.3 million), and liabilities of P16 million.

But in 1989, Binay started with just the following: P183,445 in real properties, P3.7 million in personal and other properties, and liabilities of P2.87 million.

The year he was elected vice president in 2010 was also the year that Binay marked the biggest leap in his net worth. From just P44.8 million in his 2009 SALN, he reported a net worth of P58.09 million, including real properties of P16.88 million, personal and other properties of P42.7 million, and liabilities of only P1.5 million.

His 2014 SALN also saw a P10-million uptick in his personal and other properties from 2013: P52.3 million to P62.38 million, even as the value of his real properties stood still at P13 million.

Curiously, Binay’s liabilities of only P6.05 million in 2013 more than doubled in 2014 to P16.05 million, and a P20-million variance in his net worth. In his 2014 SALN, he said he owed unnamed creditors P10 million in personal loans, P5.7 million in automobile loans, and P370,000 other liabilities.

For all the accusations of alleged plunder and unexplained wealth against Binay in months of public hearing by the Senate’s Blue Ribbon subcommittee, the vice president did not declare owning any houses or apartments in his 2014 SALN. All that he listed as real properties were three pieces of residential and agricultural lots in Makati worth just slightly over P13 million.

But Binay seems to be rolling in dough. He declared having P38.8 million in cash on hand and in the bank, apart from P4.2-million invested in growing flowers and pigs. His SALN for 2014 lists only one business entity: Blooms & Bouquet Flower Shop located at Unit 3, Southway Condominium, Mayapis Street, San Antonio Village, Makati City. It has a “nursery” in Batangas that Binay said he co-owns with his wife and former Makati mayor Dr. Elenita Binay.

It was only in his SALN filing for the years 1999 to 2009 that Binay disclosed having interest in a second business second entity: JCB Farms, a piggery located in Maligaya, Rosario, Batangas. He acknowledged, though, that his “acquisition of/connection with” JCB Farms started years earlier in 1995.

In addition, the vice president has a fleet of vehicles, including a Ford Club Wagon and Toyota Land Cruiser, altogether worth P11 million; P6.2 million in “furniture, antiques, clothing and other personal properties”; P1.1 million in jewelry; and P829,000 in “prepaid income tax/creditable withholding tax.”

Among the presidentiables, Binay and Duterte are the only ones whose immediate family members have held prominent political posts. Politics, in fact, has practically become a family business for both Binay and Duterte.

Jojo and Elenita Binay and son Jejomar Erwin Jr., or Junjun, have taken turns serving as mayor of the financial district of Makati City since 1987 – an uninterrupted 29-year reign of the clan in Makati City.

In the three years that she served as Makati City mayor from 1997 to 2000, Elenita Binay filed four SALNs jointly with her husband, all marked with constantly rising values of their conjugal net worth.

She started with P15.82 million in her 1997 SALN, P17.49 million in 1998, P20.06 million in 1999, and P24.37 million in 2000. (From 1998 to 1999, while his wife was Makati mayor, Jojo Binay worked as chairperson of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, or MMDA, as an appointee of then President Joseph Estrada.)

Daughter Mar-Len Abigail has served two terms (2010-2016) as congressman and is now running for Makati mayor, while the eldest Binay child, Ma. Lourdes Nancy, remains senator until 2019.

Abigail’s husband is Luis Jose Angel N. Campos, now a candidate for the Congress seat that she is vacating, while Nancy’s spouse is businessman Jose Benjamin R. Angeles.

Former Makati City mayor Junjun Binay became a city councilor straight from college (where he majored in creative writing and public administration), same with Abigail from law school. Before plunging into national politics in 2010, Nancy, a tourism graduate, had her hands full as a wife and mother and as a partner in her husband’s family businesses.

A third Binay daughter, Anne, works as an executive assistant at the vice president’s office. Only the youngest child, Joanna Marie, is not in public service.

All told, the combined net worth by 2014 of the four Binays currently in elective public posts amounted to a grand sum of P191,155,922. The combined value of all their real assets and personal properties for 2014 was a whopping P322,861,763. Their combined liabilities, meanwhile, was a significant P131,706,041.

Notably, the sharp uptick in the net worth that the Binays had declared in separate SALNs similarly occurred before or after the years when elections were conducted in the country: 1998-1999, 2000-2001, 2003-2004, 2007-2008, 2009-2010, and 2012-2013.

Individually, the three older Binay children in public office are more than affluent, even if they have not had enough years or opportunity to grow their wealth by leaps and bounds outside of politics.

Junjun started with a net worth of P1.1 million on his first run as councilor of Makati in 1998, when he was just 21 years old. By 2014, at age 37, he was declaring a net worth of P19.34 million on just his salary as a mayor.

He reported liabilities of P5,000 as income tax payable; P25.99 million in loans payable; P6.26 million in other payables; and P841,000 in auto loans.

Now a widower raising three children, Junjun declared purchasing various real properties (residential, mixed-use) from 1996 to 2005 in Tagaytay City in Cavite; and in Nasugbu and Loco in Batangas.

But his personal properties saw a tremendous surge in value beginning 2005 while he was still a councilor and on to becoming mayor in 2010.

In his SALN for 2014, Junjun Binay declared having P13.2 million cash on hand and in bank, P24.7 million in investments; P5.5 million in art, jewelry, and other personal properties; P3.3 million in vehicles; P3.72 million in furniture, antiques, and appliances; and P535,000 more in other unspecified personal assets.

In 1999, when he first filed his SALN as councilor, Junjun had only these personal properties: P4.16 million cash on hand and in bank; P1.3 million in vehicles; P575,000 in stocks; P564,210 in furniture and antiques; and P587,280 in jewelry.

From 1999 to 2014—the period during which he was working his way from councilor to vice mayor, to mayor of Makati -- Junjun Binay said he was a shareholder or had acquired interests in a plethora of business entities, notably: Dinette; Greenwich; Savona Estate Inc.; Hermitage & Manor Realty & Management Corp.; Millenium (sic) Food Chains Corp.; First Responder Safety Solutions Inc., as shareholder;

Stony Road Horse Farm Inc., as shareholder; Balagan Sporting Equipment Inc., as shareholder; Seahawk Retail Ventures Inc., as shareholder; Lakan Tagkan Real Estate Corp., as shareholder; and Bravehouse Holdings Inc., as shareholder.

Makati City 2nd District Rep. Abigail Binay, meanwhile, has a net worth as of 2014 of P48.99 million—assets of P78.40 million minus liabilities of P29.4 million—according to an official report of the House of Representatives on the 2014 SALN of its members.

Abigail’s net worth has undergone remarkable growth from only P10.7 million in 2007 to P14.1 million in 2012, to P29.4 million in 2008.

Among her real properties, Abigail listed the following, and their various modes of acquisition from 2000 to 2009, or before she joined Congress: Lobo, Batangas, 2005, sale; Lobo, Batangas, 2005, purchase; Biga Sto. Tomas, Isabela, 2008, donation; Langkaan, Dasmarinas, Cavite, donation; Biclatan, Gen. Trias, Cavite, 2000, purchase; and San Lorenzo Village, Makati, 2009, purchase.

The last property, according to Abigail, had an acquisition cost of only P3.17 million, fair market value of P10.19 million, and acquisition-cost-plus-improvements value of P14 million flat.

In her SALN filings from 2010, Abigail listed the interests and financial connections that she said she acquired from 1992 to 2008, or before she was elected legislator: MAS Binay Enterprise, supposedly a “consumer distributor of SMART ELOAD and others”; Subido Pagente Certeza Mendoza and Binay Law Office, as a partner; Hermitage and Manor Realty and Management Corp.; Millenium (sic) Food Chains, Inc.; Xnails, Inc.; Petsters Company, as a partner; A & T Stores Specialists, Inc.; Dalisay Farms Corp., with spouse Luis Campos Jr. as stockholder; L & N Food Corp., with Luis Campos, Jr.; Dasmarinas Realty Corp., with Luis Campos, Jr.; and Vartec Food Concepts Inc., with Luis Campos, Jr.

Abigail also listed among her personal properties that were acquired from 1994 to 1997 stocks in Kuko-Phil. Petron valued at P25,201; paintings worth P471,500; life insurance cash option credits of P308,480; jewelry worth P1 million; vehicles worth P9.66 million; capital in business worth P10.77 million; and P10.32 million cash on hand and in bank.

In 1994, Abigail was just 19 years old. It was only in 1997 when she graduated from the University of the Philippines in Los Banos with a degree in B.S. Human Ecology. In 2001, she obtained her Juris Doctor degree from the Ateneo de Manila University.

Abigail’s official profile on the website of the House of Representatives showed her brief work experience as follows: Chief Finance Officer of JCB Farms from 2002 to 2005; Legal Associate, Balane Tamase Alampay Law Office, Legal Associate, July 2003 - March 2007; and Partner, Subido Pagente Certeza Mendoza and Binay Law Office, March 2007 to June 2007.

In all her available SALN, however, Abigail has not disclosed her business or financial interests in JCB Farms.

Among her liabilities, she enrolled the following across her various SALN filings: tax-income tax, P2,320,317.27; chattel mortgage, P1,359,717.69; chattel mortgage, Banco de Oro, P1,658,249; premium loan (unpaid life insurance premium), P259,622.43; chattel mortgage, Banco de Oro, P1,745,160; loan, SPCMB Law Office, P12,000,000; and company-related liabilities, P966,402.88.

As for Sen. Nancy Binay, she declared a net worth in June 2013 of P63.94 million upon assumption into office. This dipped a bit to P63.8 million in December 2014, and went down a little more to P62.56 million by December 2014.

Nancy’s SALN filings for 2013 and 2014 show that she is the proprietor since 1999 of Jajan Marketing and a shareholder from 1994 to 2006, together with her spouse, in the following business interests: J.A. Development Corp.; AB Summit Insurance Agency, Inc.; Purple Ginger Inc.; St. Andrew’s A-C Services Inc.; Dinet Marketing Corp.; Mistico Inc.; Hermitage & Manor Realty & Management Corp.; Tetrarchy, Inc.; Aquastar Consolidated Environmental Services Inc.; and Supremecapital Corp.

For her liabilities, Nancy listed the following in her latest SALN: income tax payables, Bureau of Internal Revenue, P2,615,789; loans payable, various, P11,000,000; and other payables, various, P22,610,275.

Manuel Roxas II, Liberal Party

MANUEL “MAR” ROXAS II, scion of the old-rich Araneta and Roxas clans, is the wealthiest of the four candidates for president, according to the 14 annual SALN filings he had submitted.

Roxas’s SALN for 1995 showed his effective net worth to be P23.4 million (none indicated in real properties, P25.9 million in personal and other properties, and P2.4 million in liabilities). He did not add the amounts in his 1995 filing.

In 1996, however, Roxas enrolled P24.67 million in liabilities, the same value for his real properties, and slightly more or P35.91 million in personal and other properties. The net worth that results is a much lower P35.02 million a year later.

His net worth reached its peak in 2011, a year after he lost the vice-presidential race to Jejomar Binay in 2010. This was when Roxas declared a net worth of P183.1 million consisting of P86.44 million in real properties, P174.14 million in personal and other properties, and also P77.48 million in liabilities.

In 2009, Roxas married ABS-CBN TV and radio anchor Korina Sanchez. He has a grown-up son, Paolo Gerardo Roxas, by a former girlfriend, 1971 Miss Young International Philippines Maricar Zaldarriaga.

Roxas’s latest SALN for 2014 reflected a lower value of P81.24 million for real properties, but bigger values for personal and other properties (P202.71 million), and a bigger loans portfolio of P81.22 million.

He closed the year with a P202.08 million net worth, his biggest in 14 years since he entered public office in 1993.

Of the six candidates for president, Roxas is the most connected to a web of business and financial interests inherited and acquired from as far back as the 1980s. The Araneta and Roxas families have vast land and properties, as well as investments in agriculture, real estate, property leasing and development, and mining.

In his 2014 SALN, Roxas declared that he has stocks or membership shares in, or has been a shareholder or incorporator of 32 various business entities.

Roxas’s SALN story shares a similar trajectory to that taken by Binay’s. His net worth values showed significant upticks before or after an election year –from P12.7 million in 1993 to P23.8 million in 1994; from P23.47 million in 1995 to P35.02 million in 1996; from P51.2 million in 1998 to P58.2 million in 1999; from P50.54 million in 2004 to P75.78 million in 2005; and from P62.93 million in 2009 to P183.10 million in 2011.

But by far the biggest jump in his net worth occurred during his stint as Cabinet secretary of Aquino. His net worth of P109.73 million in his 2011 SALN nearly doubled to P203.36 million in 2012. The latter amount includes an increase of Roxas’s assets by P86 million, or from P191.43 million in 2011 to P277.35 million in 2012.

For 2009, the year before he ran and lost the race for the vice presidency to Binay, Roxas’s declared net worth was P62.93 million – assets of P124.63 million (including real properties of P25.96 million and personal properties of P98.66 million), minus liabilities of P61.70 million.

He took a year-long leave of absence from public office but when he returned in 2011 to serve as President Aquino’s transportation secretary, Roxas’s wealth also made a virtual comeback. For the year 2011, Roxas declared a net worth of P183.10 million – assets of P260.58 million (including P86.44 million in real properties and P174.14 million in personal properties) and liabilities of P77.47 million.

The next year, 2012, proved to be even brighter for Roxas, wealth-wise. This was when he reported his net worth at P203.35 million – P277.34 million in assets (including P81.24 million in real properties and P196.10 million in personal properties), and liabilities of P73.98 million.

But the year his wealth shone the brightest was in 2013, even as Roxas, by then the interior and local government secretary, was swamped with work assisting typhoon, earthquake, and other victims of calamities, man-made and natural.

For the year 2013, Roxas reported his biggest net worth yet at P211.02 million – assets of P283.52 million (including real properties worth P81.24 million and personal properties of P202.27 million), and liabilities of P72.49 million. – PCIJ, May 2016

Rodrigo Duterte, PDP-Laban

In his latest SALN for the year 2015, presidential frontrunner and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte declared a net worth for 2015 of only P23,514,569.93, or a slight P1.54-million increase in his declared net worth in 2014.

Duterte’s cash on hand/in bank, according to his latest SALN, was just P14,839,69.93 as of Dec. 31, 2015.

The earliest SALN Duterte had filed that is on PCIJ’s archives is for the year 1997, in which he declared a net worth of only P897,792.

In an earlier report this week on Duterte’s SALNs, PCIJ had noted, among other things, that Duterte’s net worth and “cash on hand/in bank” have charted an upward direction in the last two decades, save for one year.

But recent press interviews with Duterte have revealed a few more details previously unknown about his wealth, or which do not seem to be included in his SALN filings.

For one, Duterte told reporters last week that he has a dollar savings account with “about $5,000,” money that he said he had saved from an overseas trip he took many years ago. No dollar values in his “cash on hand/in bank” had ever been enrolled in Duterte’s SALNs.

For another, Duterte this week appeared in the late night TV program of his long-time friend and now ardent campaign supporter, Pastor Apollo Quiboloy. During the program, Duterte said Quiboloy, founder of The Kingdom of God, had given him three properties and two cars while he was mayor of Davao City.

“When I was mayor, Pastor bought three properties,” said Duterte. “He said, ‘I will buy properties for your children because if anything happens to you because of your work, if you die....’”

He said Quiboloy had also given him a Nissan Safari and a Ford Expedition.

The properties that Quiboloy had bought for him included, according to Duterte, a house and lot at Woodridge Park in Ma-a, Davao City, and another house and lot at Royal Pines Subdivision in Matina, Davao City.

No Nissan Safari or Ford Expedition appears in Duterte’s latest SALN, although he listed a Nissan Patrol in his 2011 SALN. In his 2015 SALN, Duterte declared owning only two vehicles: a Toyota RAV 4 and a “Volks sedan.” Duterte, however, had also listed “cars/motorcycles” in various SALN filings through the years, with total values that ranged from P1.2 million to P2.75 million.

Meanwhile, in his 2015 SALN, Duterte listed as his personal properties three lots in Bagong Aplaya, Davao City that he said he purchased between 1995 and 1997. But a second list of “other assets and personal properties, including those of the spouse and children below 18 years old,” Duterte enrolled a lot in Ma-a and a house and lot in Matina, among other assets. He said he purchased the two properties in 1997-98.

Yet still on another page of his 2015 SALN, Duterte listed a third set of real properties that he noted were “purchased through the exclusive funds of (the mother of his 11-year-old daughter), Cielito S. Avancena.”

This third set of properties includes three lots – two agricultural and one residential -– located in Matina, Malagos, and Catigan, all in Davao City; and two houses and lots in Matina, Davao City.

Duterte valued this final set of real properties at P3.08 million, by acquisition cost.

Among the 15 real assets on this list are two residential lots in Ma-a, and two in Matina.

On the SALN column for “kind of real property,” for the Matina lots, he put the name of his child by his second wife, with the notation “Residential Land.” At the time, the child was four years old.

The 2008 SALN indicates that one of the Matina assets was purchased in 2005 and had an acquisition cost of P350,000. The other was bought in 2007, but no acquisition cost appears in the document.

Two Ma-a and two Matina properties are also listed in Duterte’s SALN for the following year. The Matina lots are still in the child’s name, but this time around, one already had a different “mode of acquisition” entry: not “purchased,” but “exchanged.”

Properties in Ma-a and Matina with the same descriptions and notations would also appear in his 2011 and 2014 SALNs.

Aside from Quiboloy’s “gifts” of vehicles and pieces of property, however, Duterte has at least one more piece of real estate that should have appeared in his SALNs, yet it seems to be missing.

In recent weeks, Duterte has been fighting off accusations that he has bank accounts through which hundreds of millions of pesos have passed, as well as being the alleged owner of some 40 pieces of real estate. One of those properties – a townhouse in San Juan, Metro Manila – was apparently used as the address to open one of Duterte’s bank accounts in question.

Last week, Duterte’s youngest son Sebastian or Baste, confirmed that he had lived in the townhouse “when I was 13 years old, when I started schooling at San Beda. I did not know at the time that the property was in my name.”

Duterte was then a member of the House of Representatives but has not, then as now, declared the San Juan townhouse in his SALNs through the years.

All told, by 2014, the combined net worth of the three Dutertes in public office would have reached P53,529,881 – Rodrigo’s P21.97 million, Paolo’s P17.28 million (2014 SALN), and Sara’s P14.27 million (2011 SALN).

Miriam Defensor-Santiago, People’s Reform Party

Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s first SALN on record with PCIJ was filed for the year 1994. In it she declared a net worth of P48 million.

Nearly two decades later, in 2014, she enrolled a net worth of P73.03 million, or nearly twice more than when she started. It consisted of a measly P2.9 million in real properties, a staggering P123.03 million in personal and other properties, and P50 million in liabilities.

Santiago’s SALN narrative exemplifies the shift from real assets to personal properties, a discernible trend in the SALN filings of many senior elective officials through the years.

Until 2008, Santiago had enrolled among her assets a posh house and lot in La Vista, Quezon City, which she said she acquired on a loan in 1992 for P27 million. But from 2009 to 2014, her SALN no longer lists this property among her real assets. Instead, in these years, Defensor-Santiago enrolled the house to be her “official address.”

The remaining real assets she enrolled are eight pieces of lots and houses in Iloilo and Tarlac that she reportedly inherited. In contrast to her receding real assets, the senator’s “cash in bank” entry – P10 million in 2004 to P40 million in P2014 – bloated her personal and other properties.

In her first available SALN filed for the year 1994, Santiago started with a significant P48.99 million in real properties, and only P8.21 million in personal properties.

The value of her real assets reached a peak in 1999, at P100.39 million.

By her 2008 SALN, Santiago said she still owned a significant amount of real assets at P49,630,100 and only P48,125,876 of personal and other properties. Her total assets that year reached P97,755,986.

A big change came in 2009 when her SALN showed a marked shift in the weights she assigned to her total assets of P101,305,986. She enrolled a measly P4,180,100 for her real assets, and a huge P101,125,876 for personal properties.

In her 2014 SALN, Santiago declared business and financial interests in six entities:Narsan Holdings, Inc., since March 2002; DEFSAN Corp., since March 2009; NARC MIR Corp., since March 2009; NS & MD Corp., since March 2009; NMAM Corp., since March 2009; and Defensor Santiago Law Firm, since October 1990.

Interestingly, the offices of all six business concerns are located at NARSAN Building on No. 3 West Fourth Street, West Triangle, Quezon City, a property apparently owned by her family.

Six years earlier in 2008, she had declared business interest only in Narsan Holdings.

In 2009, she expanded her involvement in four more business entities: DEFSAN Corp., NARC MIR Corp., NS & MD Corp., and NMAM Corp.

Santiago lost in her first electoral bid for the presidency in 1992, claiming that rival Fidel V. Ramos cheated her of victory. In 1994, she declared a net worth P48 million only – P57.20 million in total assets minus P9.2 million in total liabilities.

Her wealth status would fall, and then rise again, years later.

In 1998, her net worth was P40.9 million – P70.64 million in assets (including P58.99 in real properties) minus P25 million in liabilities.

In 1999, her net worth climbed to P61.6 million – P113.89 million in assets (including P100.39 million in real properties) minus P52.29 million in liabilities.

In 2000, however, Santiago’s net worth was reduced to a third of its 1999 value – P32.89 million. It consisted of P115.89 million in assets (including P97.39 million in real properties) and a huge P83 million in liabilities. Santiago did not declare interest in any business entity in the year 2000.

- The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism