The cornerstone of democratic governance lies in public trust, and nowhere is that trust more rigorously tested than in the mandated financial disclosures of its highest officials. In the Philippines, this measure of integrity is enshrined in the Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN), a document meant to ensure that public servants are not enriching themselves at the expense of the nation. Recently, this sacred principle of transparency has been thrust back into the national spotlight, not by an external investigation, but by an alleged verbal misstep from one of the country’s top leaders, Vice President Sara Duterte. Her confident assertions regarding the accessibility of her own records have been publicly and swiftly dismantled, triggering a wave of doubt and reigniting a fierce debate over government accountability that has been dormant for years.

The controversy erupted following the Vice President’s commentary on a new memo issued by the current Ombudsman, which aims to ease the requirements for the public to obtain SALN documents. In response, Vice President Duterte reportedly dismissed the new effort as nothing more than “drama” or a publicity stunt designed for public perception. Her argument was simple and striking: there was no need to ease the requirements because, in her estimation, her financial records were already available to the public and easy to acquire. She specifically cited the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), one of the nation’s most respected watchdogs, as proof, claiming that the PCIJ had previously published her SALNs and that journalists routinely accessed them.

This specific claim—the easy accessibility and prior publication by PCIJ—became the critical point of rupture. Journalists, recognizing the weight of her words and the implication that the secrecy issue was overstated, immediately sought to verify the Vice President’s assertion with the PCIJ itself. The results of this simple fact-check were devastating to the official narrative. In a stunning public contradiction, the PCIJ’s leadership confirmed that the last time they were able to successfully obtain and publish a SALN from Sara Duterte was in 2017, a time when she served as the Mayor of Davao City. That disclosure occurred years before she assumed the high office of Vice President and well before the highly restrictive rules governing SALN access were put into effect. The discrepancy was glaring: the Vice President was speaking of a reality that existed nearly a decade ago, one that no longer reflects the current, heavily fortified wall of government secrecy.

To fully grasp the magnitude of this alleged contradiction, one must understand the environment of secrecy that was systematically constructed around the financial disclosures of top officials in recent years. The tightening of access began during the tenure of her father, former President Duterte. While the Constitution mandates transparency, administrative policy began to evolve in a direction that severely curtailed the public’s ability to monitor the wealth of its leaders. This was formalized in 2020 by then-Ombudsman Samuel Martirez, an appointee of the former President, who issued a set of new, highly restrictive rules. These rules effectively rendered the SALN—the people’s tool for accountability—obsolete for public scrutiny.

Under the 2020 rules, anyone seeking to obtain the SALN of a top official faced nearly insurmountable obstacles. The requirements included securing a written permission from the very official whose records were being sought, obtaining a court order, or proving that the request was part of a formal Ombudsman investigation. In essence, an individual who suspected an official of unexplained wealth or illicit activity had to first ask that official for permission to examine the evidence against them—a condition that was widely criticized as illogical and a deliberate shutdown of public oversight. The Ombudsman, the supposed guardian of transparency, became the key mechanism for maintaining secrecy, shielding the executive branch from scrutiny.

This systemic lockdown meant that from 2018 onward, the public—and more importantly, the investigative press—lost the ability to conduct independent monitoring of the wealth accumulated by the President and Vice President. Requests from petitioners and journalists, including the PCIJ and individuals like Attorney Dino de Leon, were consistently denied or passed back and forth between the Office of the President and the Ombudsman, effectively running out the clock on public inquiry. The financial details of the nation’s highest officials became state secrets, a situation that many constitutional experts argued was a clear violation of the constitutional mandate for government transparency and full public disclosure.

The new policy introduced by the current Ombudsman, while not a complete reversal of the previous restrictive rules, has been widely lauded as a step in the right direction. It aims to loosen the bureaucratic stranglehold by simplifying the process for ordinary citizens. The new requirements reportedly involve submitting a request letter and two valid IDs, making it significantly easier for the public to access the financial records of officials. This move, however, was framed by Vice President Duterte as unnecessary “drama,” a characterization that inadvertently drew attention to her own transparency track record, which the PCIJ exposé subsequently undermined.

The political ramifications of this incident are significant. Critics argue that the Vice President’s defense of the existing system and her inaccurate recollection of her own disclosure history raise immediate questions about her commitment to the constitutional principle of accountability. When a public servant is seen to be minimizing the importance of easy access to their financial records, the inference—fair or not—is that there is something to conceal. For politicians, whose power is derived from the people, the SALN is not merely a formality; it is a declaration of integrity. The public has a fundamental right to know the true value of the assets, liabilities, and net worth of their leaders to detect potential corruption and prevent illicit enrichment.

Furthermore, the entire episode underscores a deeper, structural issue within the bureaucracy. The ease with which the system of transparency was reversed—allowing an administrative rule to effectively override the spirit of a constitutional mandate—highlights the vulnerability of accountability mechanisms. The public must be able to rely on independent bodies like the Ombudsman and the investigative press to act as checks on power. When the official responsible for safeguarding these records imposes rules that require the permission of the very people being monitored, the system ceases to function as intended.

As the political debate rages, the primary focus remains on the missing financial disclosures. The public and press are now demanding that Vice President Sara Duterte and other top officials voluntarily release their SALNs from 2018 to the present. This voluntary act of disclosure would not only clear the air regarding her personal wealth but would also provide a powerful demonstration of her commitment to the highest ideals of public service, integrity, and the fundamental right of the Filipino people to transparent governance. The truth, it seems, is no longer found in an official’s prepared statement, but in the verifiable facts held by the very institutions designed to keep power in check.