The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The country’s major business groups called for all government officials to undergo lifestyle checks – by making public their Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth (SALN) – to ensure transparency and accountability.
Six business groups – led by the Makati Business Club (MBC) and the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) – said in a joint statement: “Without rigorous verification, SALNs remain symbolic records rather than effective tools against corruption.”
Other signatories of the statement include the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX), Shareholders’ Association of the Philippines, Justice Reform Initiative, and Institute for Solidarity in Asia.
The business groups said lifestyle audits can easily be conducted with the availability of digital footprints in social media posts of public officials and their family members. Social media posts show their spending patterns, travel, social media activities and luxury possessions.
“They are essential to uncover if declared wealth aligns with actual living standards,” they added.
The ongoing corruption scandal has sparked widespread outrage and street protests, especially after the spread of social media posts showing the lavish lifestyles of some officials, contractors and their family members.
Recently, Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla reopened public access to SALNs.
“While the recent Ombudsman decision restoring public access to SALNs is welcome, transparency alone is insufficient,” the groups said.
They noted that under Republic Act (RA) No. 1379, any property “manifestly out of proportion” to an official’s income is presumed ill-gotten and subject to forfeiture.
“Lifestyle audits enable this legal presumption. Discrepancies uncovered through these checks must trigger immediate, impartial investigations and prosecutions under the Ombudsman’s constitutional mandate,” the groups said.
They called on the public to report signs of “excessive or unexplained wealth” among public officials.
“The corruption we now see, we cannot unsee. We can no longer allow pilferage to prosper under the cover of pretense, political patronage, and public indifference,” they added.
IBON Foundation Executive Director Jose Enrique “Sonny” A. Africa said lifestyle checks are absolutely necessary, amid the calls for reform.
“The constitutional, statutory and ethical basis is already sound and just made ineffectual by elite political opposition and capture of the government’s anti-corruption agencies,” he said.
“Overcoming this will be a key test of the Marcos administration’s sincerity in cracking down on corruption,” he added.
He said with the advent of digital databases and artificial intelligence tools, the government now “cannot use technical infeasibility as an excuse.”
“The people and even the Constitution require the ‘highest standard of ethics’ for public officials. The corruption scandals are exposing how much dishonest wealth is amassed at the expense of the public welfare,” he said.
Meanwhile, Edmund S. Tayao, president and chief executive officer of Political Economic Elemental Researchers and Strategists, said the SALNs and lifestyle checks are a temporary solution.
“It’s not going to hurt to improve the reporting of SALNs… On the other hand, whether or not we make it more comprehensive and complicated, there’s still no certainty that it will effectively improve accountability,” he said.
He said elected officials can hide ill-gotten wealth, highlighting the need to improve accountability by changing the whole political setup.
“We don’t have an existing political system. We call it a system, but anything and everything depends on the personality or the individual, which means that whoever runs for office will always be spending money as a person,” he said.
“Until such time that we change the political setup, where real political parties can really support qualified candidates to run for office and not for candidates to spend for their campaigns, this will be a vicious cycle,” he added.