[Rappler’s Best] The Ombudsman’s secret corridors

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'The retired ombudsman, Samuel Martires, was obviously allergic to sunlight during his seven-year term'

US President Donald Trump is in the neighborhood, his first swing in the region since assuming office in January and in the aftermath of punishing tariffs imposed on Asian nations. Check our updates here.

The American president arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, October 26, to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, where he presided over the signing of a ceasefire deal between Thailand and Cambodia, three months after fighting broke out on their border.

• The regional bloc also welcomed its 11th member, Timor-Leste, the first new member of ASEAN in nearly three decades. 
• On the sidelines of the summit, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. met with, among other leaders, the new prime minister of Japan — and its first female head — Takaichi Sanae, the hardline conservative who was elected by the Japanese parliament on October 21.
• Trump signed trade and mineral deals with Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia. He is scheduled to be in Tokyo on Monday, October 27, then in Seoul for a keynote at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit on Thursday, October 30, where he is expected to meet with China’s Xi Jinping over trade.

In Kuala Lumpur, the Marcos administration seems to have gotten cold feet toward a public disclosure of the President’s Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN), something that Marcos promised recently. On Sunday, the executive secretary and the presidential spokesperson were singing a different tune, claiming that the President would show his SALN to the “proper authority.”

We certainly hope this is just one of those slip-ups for the simple reason that if the President will not disclose his SALN to the public, what would stop others — his vice president, in particular — from hiding their own? As Noel Lazaro writes in this piece, the SALN “is the humblest document in government” but which “carries the weight of a principle older than any republic: that power must account for itself.”

Even business groups have made an unprecedented call for officials not just to open their SALNs, but also for the government to end bank secrecy in corruption cases. “In governance, sunlight is not only disinfectant — it is capital,” Lazaro says.

The retired ombudsman, Samuel Martires, was obviously allergic to sunlight during his seven-year term. He not only kept SALNs from the public, he also stowed away a major decision that reversed his predecessor’s order and rescued Senator Joel Villanueva from being booted out of public service.

• On Thursday, October 23, Ombudsman Boying Remulla, successor of Martires, announced his plan to ask the Senate to finally enforce a 2016 order of former ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales to dismiss Villanueva from public service over his alleged misuse of his pork barrel allocation.
• Lo and behold! It turns out that Martires had reversed the order but neither he nor Villanueva ever made it public. Veteran Malaya court reporter Peter Tabingo, writing about Martires’ chronology, said Villanueva filed his motion for reconsideration during Morales’ time — but it seemed the recommendation of investigators granting it did not surface and reach Morales’ attention. So when he assumed office in 2018, Martires said he ordered an inventory of pending cases and, a year later, approved a panel’s findings that favored the senator.
• We honestly thought the Morales order stayed (which the previous Senate refused to heed), and cited this in our September 15 newsletter. Martires cannot exculpate himself by invoking his office’s processes. The fact is, he reversed a decision made by his predecessor and he had chosen to not disclose to the public a decision that the public needed to know.
• Why does this matter? Villanueva has again been dragged into another controversy, the flood control scandal. So, can Remulla still push for a review of the Martires order? Jairo Bolledo tackles this in this story.

Let’s pause for a moment to say a prayer for the beautiful Emman Atienza, who seemed so full of life even as she struggled with her mental health; she died last week. Her parents Kim and Feli have been very much a part of the Rappler journey; Feli joined the Rappler Board in 2014 and served for three years. There’s a lump in our hearts that could not be described in words. Courage on, Kim and Feli.

Here are some of Rappler’s bests that you shouldn’t miss:

• Jairo Bolledo explains how former senator Juan Ponce Enrile, now presidential legal counsel at 101 years old, managed to score back-to-back victories at the Sandiganbayan over his alleged involvement in the pork barrel scam under the Noynoy Aquino administration. Enrile was cleared of graft charges on Friday, October 24, a year after he was also acquitted of plunder. 
• Pauline Macaraeg tells us that clickbait pages have been capitalizing on Alex Eala’s fame by producing fake news about her and other prominent people.  
• Isagani de Castro Jr. notes how Filipinos are shifting to green vehicles.
• Tatiana Maligro shows us how a bank learned the ways scammers hijack victims’ phones to transfer funds from their accounts. 
• Victor Barreiro Jr. writes how Anthony Taberna got a dose of his own medicine. 

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– Rappler.com

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