By Paul Atienza
The Daily Tribune
The Daily Tribune
CITES CO-EQUAL STATUS OF CONGRESS, EXECUTIVE
BIR Commissioner Kim Henares
The Palace declared yesterday legislators, particularly those in the House of Representatives which is packed with its allies, are beyond the ambit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) even in the review of their statement of assets, liabilities and networth (SALn) which government officials and employees are required to submit yearly but which the Palace said the BIR cannot compel members of Congress to produce.
President Aquino’s deputy spokesman Abigail Valte said members of Congress cannot be compelled to submit their SALns for BIR examination since BIR is part of the Executive which is co-equal with Congress as branches of government.
That was not the argument that the Palace used against former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona who was head of the Judiciary which is also co-equal with that of the Executive.
The Palace instigated its allies in Congress to impeach Corona based partly on allegations that he did not report all of his assets in his yearly SALn.
Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares even testified before the Senate impeachment court trying Corona that his SALn bore discrepancies on the value of his declared properties, even extending the BIR probe to members of his family.
Corona during the trial surrendered his SALn which became the basis of his conviction and eventual removal from office.
Some of the judges in the Senate court then said that since Corona was removed from office as a result of discrepancies in his SALN, other government officials should also open up their financial records for the sake of fairness and transparency.
Now, Valte said the 300 members of the House of Representatives including those sitting as partylist representatives who enjoys equal share of the controversial “pork barrel” spending, that they are not compelled to have their SALns scrutinized by the BIR.
“It is not from the Lower House that the BIR has tried to secure the SALNs. Maybe, it so happened that those who are on the list could either not yet submit (documents),” she said.
“But being a co-equal branch of government, I’m sure that the House leadership will do something about it. Contrary to some of the reports that came out, not all of the Congressmen are being asked by Commissioner Henares to submit their SALN,” Valte said.
In light of the gross malversation of P10-billion pork barrel funds allegedly by 28 lawmakers, some congressmen and senators are under pressure to produce their SALns, the deadline for the submission of which under the law was well past last April 30.
Henares said the BIR had issued several requests but none of the Congressmen being subjected to suspicions of having been involved in the P10-billion pork barrel scam had submitted if not released their SALn.
Henares said Congress must investigate everything and that includes the SALNs of politicians.
The Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel is being suspected to have been abused by Congressmen using dummy organizations to justify ghost projects in the past ten years.
Henares admitted the BIR has a problem on how to convince Congressmen who acted as “prosecutors” on the December 2011 Corona impeachment trial to submit their own SALns.
Valte said the Congressmen could not be compelled by the BIR to submit their SALn because the BIR is an office which is under the Executive branch of government , or the Finance Department, while the legislators belong to the Legislative branch.
“You know, technically, they’re not supposed to submit it to BIR. That is in the House already.
So if anybody who wants to get a copy of the SALn, (they) should be able to go to the House secretariat to ask for the SALn because, that is not regular, given that Congress is a co-equal branch and the BIR belongs under the Executive branch,” Valte said.
Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda earlier said that the BIR has jurisdiction over everyone who earns income including government workers and officials.
Valte said President Aquino’s men are willing to work as a team with the members of the Lower House to attain their common goal under the administration.
“We are prepared to work with them. This is not the first time that we have encountered this particular situation. When the President assumed office, if you notice, the inclination has always been to limit the uses that would be available under the PDAF, and you can see by now that the limitations, the tact to limit has given — has produced some success. So we will continue to work with the members of the House on this,” Valte said.
Valte reiterated that P10 billion PDAF scam by Congressmen has been placed under investigation by the NBI that the investigation is impartial and is objective.
“The investigation will be taken to its logical end based on the pieces of evidence and the testimonies that will be given before it,” Valte said.
Valte said in response to Pamalakaya, a fisherfolk group who demanded an audit report on how President Aquino spent his 2012 President’s Social Funds (PSF) that the Commission on Audit (CoA) had checked the funds.
“First, the President has no pork barrel. What is being asked here is the President’s Social Fund that you may not know is also audited by the Commission on Audit.
“In fact, you would see the expenditures of PSF in the past year and that can be accessible on CoA report that is already available online,” Valte said.
Pamalakaya demanded from the CoA to audit the P24.8 billion that the House of Representatives had allotted to the office of the President in 2012.
Valte earlier also expressed the position of Aquino to reject the proposition to abolish the 2014 allotment of PDAF for the lawmakers.
Then Valte issued another declaration to oppose the abolition of the PSF for Aquino.
Aquino would be expected to distribute his PSF on the localities where he would be preferred and whose local leaders are allies, and to fund “special projects and concerns” as well as the expenses for presidential for intelligence work.
On 2012, Aquino’s pork barrel was P2.695 billion for intelligence funds, that the P666 million of it was for the national security monitoring and for the Presidential Anti-Organized Syndicated Crime and Transnational Crime campaign.
An intelligence fund of P600,000 for “confidential and intelligence” expenses was allotted and would be released upon orders of Aquino.
Aquino had P224.68 million budget for travel expenses.
For contingent funds, Aquino has the prerogative powers on the intelligence funds, contingent funds, calamity funds, and unprogrammed funds.
An amount of P1 billion had allotted to Aquino for his contingent funds.
Aquino had P14.2 billion for disaster management, which is separate from the calamity fund which was amounted to P7.5 billion in 2012 from P5 billion in 2011.
Valte stressed, technically, members of Congress are not obliged to submit their SALns to the Bureau of Internal Revenue but to the House of Representatives.
“Anybody who wants to get a copy of the SALn should be able to go to the House secretariat to ask for the SALn,” she said.
Congressmen submitting SALns to the BIR is not regular, given that Congress is a co-equal branch and the BIR is under the Executive branch, Valte explained.
Malacanang also gave an assurance this week that the ongoing investigation of the National Bureau of Investigation into the alleged pork barrel scam will be impartial and objective.
Valte said in an interview on Friday that the Palace wants to conclude the NBI investigation at the soonest possible time adding however that prosecuting and putting those guilty behind bars are beyond its control.
A bill which has been earning cobwebs in the Senate but was recently refiled by Senator Francis Escudero, chairman of the Senate committee on banking and finance, sought public officials signing of a waiver and make their bank deposits available for public scrutiny when they file their annual SALn.
A bill which has been earning cobwebs in the Senate but was recently refiled by Senator Francis Escudero, chairman of the Senate committee on banking and finance, sought public officials signing of a waiver and make their bank deposits available for public scrutiny when they file their annual SALn.
The controversy involving the illegal use of slush funds of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) as cash gifts, monthly allocation and send-off money for high ranking officials prompted the filing of the bill, he said. “This is a transparency move I had advocated for several years and it is still an advocacy I am bent to pursue in this fresh mandate given to me by the people,” Escudero said.
“When I went around the country during the campaign I promised our people I will continue pursuing measures to fight graft and corruption. I am only making good my pledge by re-filing this bill, my first legislative agenda in the 16th Congress” the senator said.
Reiterating that “government service is a privilege and not a right,” Escudero said “everyone working in and those who plan to join the government should open their finances to audit.”
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