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Unexplained wealth, redacted?

Malou Mangahas
SEPTEMBER 22ND, 2017

TO REDACT or not to redact.

Which could avoid or attract scrutiny and censure?

Redactions are not the only issue that could arise if public officials would shade or black out the true, detailed, and complete facts of their wealth.

Big and small discrepancies in the content of SALNs they have filed across periods of time could trigger more serious questions. Unexplained wealth, for one.

PCIJ has secured the SALNs that most of the same Cabinet members had filed as of June 30, 2016 — whence they entered public service as Duterte’s appointees. These had not been redacted at all.

Next came the SALNs they filed as of December 2016 that were shotful of shaded or blacked-out items, thus showing only the sums of their assets, liabilities, and net worth.

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By PCIJ’s review, the SALNs without redactions and with redactions of 10 Cabinet secretaries showed net-worth increases of P100,000 to nearly P30 million across the six-month period:

• A hefty P29,753,018-increase — or about P5 million a month — in the net worth of Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez, or from P322,106,265 in June 2016 to P351,859,283 in December 2016.

• A P9,906,155-increase in the net worth of Economic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia, or from P95,525,450 in July 2016 to P105,431,605.52 in December 2016.

• A P5.225-million increase in the net worth of Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Martin Andanar, or from P147,047,869.19 in June 2016 to P152,272,523.19, as of December 2016;

• A P4,673,599-increase in the net worth of Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza, or from P35,371,280.95 in June 2016 to P40,044,880.07 in December 2016.

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Salalima’s net dips

In contrast, newly resigned Information and Communications Technology Secretary Rodolfo Salima, who was a telco executive for a long time, showed an unexplained decline in wealth from June to December 2016. He entered public service with a net worth of P311,370,739.26, but this dipped to P304,961,439.91 by December 2016, a decrease of P6,409,299.

Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar, the wealthiest of the Duterte Cabinet members, declared a net worth of P1.41-billion in his December 2016 SALN. Only these sums of his SALN entries have not been redacted: P134.9-million in real properties, P1.29-billion in “other real and personal properties”; and liabilities of only P14.5 million.

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Dominguez’s dough

The rise and fall of the values enrolled in the redacted and unredacted SALNs are rather difficult to track. This much is true in the case of Finance Secretary Dominguez, whose SALNs for June 2016 and December 2016 showed the largest net increase.

In both SALNs, he declared zero liabilities but also an identical list of real assets, personal and other properties, and slight changes in the entities in which he has business interests and financial connections.

Dominguez declared the same list of nine residential, agricultural, and commercial real properties that he acquired or inherited but marked a P5.5-million increase in their combined values. He said that he had real assets in Davao del Sur; Davao City; Tuguegarao, Cagayan; Sta. Maria, Bulacan; and one in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. that he reportedly acquired in 2001 at a cost of P51,975,720, as of his June 2016 SALN.

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Aguirre’s kin

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, meanwhile, declared a net worth of P37,632,069.77 as of December 2016, but PCIJ has not received from Malacañang a copy of his June 2016 SALN.

Aguirre’s filing stands out for the number of his relatives in government: 13 in all, including the Mayor and a councilor in Mulanay, Quezon. He has a sister working as an election officer in Mauban, Quezon; another sister, a sister-in-law, five first cousins, and a niece all working in Mulanay town; two first cousins-in-law and an aunt employed in three other Quezon towns; and a bilas or in-law, Victor Uy, who works as his executive assistant at the Justice department.

President Rodrigo R. Duterte, in his SALNs that enroll just one data field redacted in each — his home address — showed a P3.4-million increase in his net worth, or from P24,080,094.04 in June 2016 to P27,428,862.44 in December 2016.

PCIJ obtained copies of Duterte’s SALNs from the Office of the Ombudsman, hence its singular redacted data entry. — PCIJ, September 2017

http://pcij.org/

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