By LALA ORDENES and ARTHA KIRA PAREDES
(Written by VERA Files for the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Talk of the Town)
THE impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona has put the spotlight on an otherwise nondescript document that all government officials routinely file annually: the statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN).
The Senate, sitting as impeachment court, will decide whether or not Corona has violated the Constitution by failing to disclose his SALN and declare everything he supposedly owns. If the senator-judges find him guilty of even just this one offense, the Chief Justice could be looking at the bleak prospect of being removed from office.
Supreme Court decisions show that violations relating to improper filing of a SALN, including what some may consider minor, have been meted out severe penalties.
In an August 2010 case decided by the Corona-led Supreme Court, a regional director of the Bureau of Internal Revenue was dismissed from government service for deliberately omitting two motor vehicles registered to him in his SALN declaration. The court said: “(T)he SSAL (sworn statement of assets and liabilities) is not a mere scrap of paper. The law requires that the SSAL must be accomplished as truthfully, as detailed and as accurately as possible.” >>READ MORE>>