Ghost ombudsman

Taking their cue from newly minted Ombudsman Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla, all members of the Senate finally released their statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs), public documents that had been kept private for years. That wasn’t so hard, was it? No need for applause. Nothing heroic about it. This is actually long overdue and frankly, something expected of them in the first place.

All members of the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court should follow suit. Last time I checked, only a handful of House members, mainly progressives and reformers, have released their SALNS, and none from the so-called Gods of Padre Faura. This should become a regular habit, not a one-off publicity stunt. After all, transparency used to be the norm before ICC inmate Rodrigo Duterte came to power, along with his ombudsman, Samuel Martires, who thought public transparency was somehow an affront to politicians’ dignity.

Public office is a public trust. If our politicians can’t do something as basic as releasing their SALNs, the bare minimum of transparency, how can we trust them? Joining the government is not like signing an exclusive membership to a private club. If they’re allergic to public scrutiny, they have no business doing public service. They should’ve chosen a career in the private sector, though, given their track records, one wonders who would even hire them.

Of course, SALN disclosure is not a magic bullet against corruption. The corrupt can find many ways to hide their stolen wealth. Still, this remains a vital tool for transparency. When red flags appear in a politician’s SALN, the public gains both reason and the right to ask questions and dig deeper.

Senator Chiz Escudero is a case in point. In what universe are we meant to believe that a man born into a political dynasty, a beneficiary of a P30-million “donation” from a contractor-friend and allegedly enjoying billions from budget insertions, is the country’s poorest senator? Poorer even than Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros, who doesn’t have the political pedigree to lean on? Really now.

And just when we were starting to wonder how poor Chiz really is, we are reminded of the blue Paraíba tourmaline ring he gave his wife. Initial news reports pegged its value at around $1 million, or roughly P59 million today. Interestingly, neither Chiz, his wife nor any of their friends ever made a polite and humble attempt to dispute the figure. And why wouldn’t they? A $1-million ring from a public official would be scandalous by any standard. Even something as tokenistic as “Uy, hindi naman ganyan kamahal” was never uttered. I guess silence can be the most expensive form of confirmation.

But when the public started asking how a “modest man” could afford a ring worth more than himself, out of the woodwork came so-called jewelry experts claiming it’s only P1 million. Style bulok. Are they suggesting that the ring costs no more than a middle-class family’s brand-new car? Yet the senator’s wife’s ecstatic reaction, jumping with joy as if she’d just received a gift no ordinary mortal could dream of, suggests otherwise. Or perhaps it wasn’t about the price at all, but the senator’s undying love and affection?

Then there’s Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano, who now declares a net worth of P109 million, nearly five times higher than a decade ago. Of course, an increase in wealth isn’t automatically suspicious. It could be a blessing from heaven, especially how close he is to God. Politicians are allowed to prosper, too. But what raises eyebrows is how, despite his net worth of P23.6 million in 2015, Cayetano managed to miraculously donate over P70 million to Duterte’s presidential campaign. His explanation? He claimed that he merely “pooled” funds from various donors. How admirable, except he reportedly never quite got around to naming who these generous donors were.

Cases like Escudero’s and Cayetano’s show exactly why SALN disclosures matter. They are windows to politicians’ patterns of wealth, lifestyle and potential corruption. It reminds us that accountability begins with transparency. And this is precisely why, for many years, the public was kept in the dark because the Duterte-appointed ombudsman, Samuel Martires, treated SALNs like classified state information. Under his term, the release of these legally public documents required the consent of the very officials being scrutinized, as if the call for accountability required top secret clearance.

And what was Martires’ logic? He was “protecting” public officials from the people’s abuse. He even argued that while SALNs must be disclosed, no one’s allowed to talk about them. Public discussion, he claimed, should be punishable – with up to five years in jail! So instead of calling out those who hide their SALNs, he wanted to punish the citizens who clamor for transparency and accountability. Apparently, to him, informed citizens are dangerous.

Many say Martires is the worst ombudsman ever. I beg to differ. He was never an ombudsman. He is a non-ombudsman, a ghost in the office, turning SALNs into phantoms, conjuring a secret decision to absolve Senator Joel Villanueva and despising any lifestyle checks on public officials, claiming citizens have no right to peek into their “private” lives. It looks like he has little to no understanding of transparency, accountability, public trust or the very idea of public service. He echoes the warped values of many traditional politicians: that public office is private property and that profiting from it should come without the nuisance of public scrutiny, or even the ombudsman.

Martires is the antithesis of everything the Office of the Ombudsman stands for. The public has every right, and the duty, to shame him for life.