EDITORIAL - Still under lock and key

Last year, as Jesus Crispin Remulla took over as ombudsman and eased restrictions on the disclosure of public officials’ statements of assets, liabilities and net worth, members of the Akbayan party-list in the House of Representatives became the first to open their SALNs for scrutiny.

The Akbayan congressmen and a former member did this even if the Office of the Ombudsman is not the repository of the SALNs of lawmakers and the judiciary. Since then, other congressmen led by Speaker Faustino Dy III have released their SALNs for 2025, with the House chief declaring a net worth of over P74 million.

Today, however, with several lawmakers under fire for questionable budgeting acrobatics and corruption in flood control projects, the commitment to transparency seems to have stalled.

Remulla has openly lamented that the House has imposed a new rule to restrict the access of ombudsman probers to lawmakers’ SALNs. Investigators of the ombudsman, he said, have been told by the House secretary-general that plenary approval is needed before congressmen’s SALNs can be released.

In a media forum, Remulla said he would be writing to Speaker Dy about the matter. Remulla pointed out that there has never been such a requirement from the House secretary-general since his days as a congressman representing Cavite.

There shouldn’t even be a need for such a letter. Republic Act 6713, the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, requires SALNs to “be made available for inspection at reasonable hours… available to the public for a period of ten years after receipt of the statement.”

For those requesting copies of a SALN, only a “reasonable fee” is required to cover the cost of reproducing the document, according to RA 6713.

Yet various government institutions, led by the Supreme Court, which is the repository of the SALNs of justices, have failed to comply with this disclosure requirement set by law. To this day, the SC has not made public the SALN of any of its members.

With the budget and public works corruption scandal erupting last year, there was supposed to be an intensified effort to promote transparency in government. This has not been seen in the judiciary, and the House is moving in the same direction.