The Right to Know Right Now Coalition (R2KRN) will roll out this week a live public dashboard to track and record, in real time, who among our senior public officials — the President, Vice President, senators and congressmen, and DPWH officials — will release their latest Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN) — and who will still keep their wealth records secret.
The dashboard will consolidate official responses and links to source documents to allow citizens, the media, and oversight agencies to independently verify the disclosures.
R2KRN is sending formal request letters to the President, the Vice President, Cabinet secretaries, members of the Senate and House of Representatives, and DPWH officials, urging them to disclose and publish their latest SALNs and provide access links for inclusion in the R2KRN dashboard.
Publishing SALNs promptly, proactively, and in full is a visible commitment to true accountability. All our leaders must now release their SALNs to finally comply with their duty in law, amid the universal outrage over the massive corruption in flood control projects.
The R2KRN dashboard will:
• Track official responses from offices covered by the challenge;
• Log status as either published; pending; incomplete; or declined;
• Provide links to primary documents or official posts for independent verification; and,
• Publish periodic updates for media and the public to see emerging patterns of compliance across branches and agencies.
The 1987 Constitution compels the disclosure of SALNs as a duty of all public officials, especially for those of senior rank. In Article XI, Section 17, the Charter requires them to file SALNs, and specifically mandates public disclosure for the President, Vice President, Members of the Cabinet and Congress, the Supreme Court, Constitutional Commissions and other constitutional offices, and officers of the Armed Forces with general or flag rank, in the manner provided by law.
This constitutional command is implemented by Republic Act No. 6713 or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, also known as The SALN Law.
A true and complete SALN should disclose the cash on hand and in bank, real properties (when and where acquired), liabilities, relatives in government, and just as important, the business interests and financial connections of public officials.
A true and complete SALN should disclose or dispel real or potential conflict of interest or unexplained wealth of public officials.
The framers of the 1987 Constitution were explicit about the mandate and the needed practice for SALNs. As Commissioner Blas F. Ople put it, the Constitution places “the people’s right to know as the centerpiece” in the conduct of public affairs, and that public officials should make their SALNs “available for public scrutiny, not merely storing them in the archives.”
The Commissioners were also united in the purpose of the requirement for SALNs: it aims to deter conflicts of interest in government; it seeks to prevent graft and corruption.; and it provides the public with a mechanism to determine whether public officials are living within their means.
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