Congress bucks more detailed SALn

Claiming it is violative of their constitutional rights, members of the House minority bloc joined forces with majority camp in the lower chamber to oppose the new statement of assets, liabilities and networth (SALn) the Civil Service Commission (CSC) has required of them.

At their weekly press briefing, House Minority Leader and Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez stressed they are registering their objection to the proposed new SALn form, “mainly because of potentially unconstitutional overreach.”

“Under Article 11, Section

17 of the Constitution, every public officer is required to submit under oath a declaration of his assets, liabilities, and net worth,” Suarez said reading a prepared statement. “And yet the new SALn form seeks to go much farther, by also requiring disclosure of matters like one’s gross income, personal and family expenses and income taxes paid.”

In opposing the new SALn form, Suarez raised four issues as basis for their objection — the Supreme Court has ruled that “a governmental purpose may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms, the constitutional requirement of disclosure pertains only to the public officer involved and not to his spouse and other relatives, the additional information required is tantamount to a “fishing expedition” that infringes on a person’s right against self-incrimination and exposes public officials to harassment and abuse and the content of the SALN form is also found in Republic Act 6713, or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, hence before the new SALN form can be implemented the law must first be amended.

Surigao del Sur Rep. Philip Pichay said in the hearing they held with representatives of the CSC, not only members of the minority bloc opposed the new SALn form but as well as those coming from the majority camp.

“We had a committee hearing with the Committee on Civil Service and that it was during the committee hearing that we questioned that what is required supposed to be the SALn is statement of assets, liabilities and net worth but the new form that we have is not only assets, liabilities and net worth but it also includes sources of gross income, sources of expenses and also the amount of income tax paid which is not covered by the existing laws,” Pichay said.

He added the new data required for in the new SALn form was originally included in the proposed new form 1702 of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) which Congress also opposed.

“This was also included in our meeting in the Ways and Means by the BIR under form 1702 at the time we already complained that it could not be done we are not acceptable because it is unconstitutional because it might breach the Secrecy Law of the Central Bank or the banking institution and because what we are going to put in the other income other source of income are what you call passive income or income that are already subject to final tax such as interest income from banks interest income from other sources, cash dividend which is subject already to 20 percent tax and the other one the major one is also the capital gains when you sell property,” Pichay explained.

“In fairness to (Finance) Secretary (Cesar) Purisima, he deleted it (in the BIR form 1702) but to our surprise they incorporated it in the SALn,” he noted.

Pichay said the CSC assured them it will review the proposal for the new SALn form. –Charlie V. Manalo, Manila Standard Today