Sereno’s SALN: Overlooked and Underreported in the Media

 

ALTHOUGH MARIA Lourdes Sereno has been removed from her position as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (SC), the media has failed to clarify the actual charges against her and whether this has been proven in either forum in which her fitness for office has been questioned.

An earlier CMFR monitor pointed out that the hearings held by the House Committee on Justice to evaluate the motion to impeach her should be raised to the Senate, and that it had not answered satisfactorily whether the charges against Sereno are indeed impeachable acts (“Looking into Gadon’s Charges: Impeachable or Not?”)?

The same can be said even now after the landmark ruling on May 11 when the SC by a narrow vote of 8-6 ousted Sereno via the little-known mechanism of law: the quo warranto.

In its decision, the SC found Sereno as lacking integrity on account of her failure to file “a substantial number” of SALNs or statement of assets, liabilities and net worth, and her failure to submit as required the SALNs to the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) during her application for the judiciary’s top post. The High Court’s findings concurred with Solicitor General Jose Calida who, in his petition, also raised the SALN issue as basis for questioning Sereno’s appointment as chief justice.

It’s clear the SALN issue took center stage in the debacle at the SC, but reports did not attempt to provide context to fully explain the charge.

CMFR focused on reports from main broadsheets Manila Bulletin, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and The Philippine Star, as well as select news websites, from May 4 to 18. Print have the advantage of space which could have been used for explainers and detailed accounts.

Briefly mentioned

The issue of Sereno’s SALNs received scant attention from the media in the weeks leading to and after the decision was announced. Reports merely referenced the issue in passing, often only citing Calida’s petition or the SC decision itself. The media left this to the sidelines, noted with little context and with no reference to Sereno’s response to the accusations.

Some examples:

• “Solicitor General Jose Calida filed the quo warranto petition asking the 14 remaining Supreme Court justices to invalidate Sereno’s appointment in 2012 for her supposed failure to submit all her required statements of assets, liabilities and net worth.” (“Sereno says Martires also showed clear bias,” Inquirer, May 6)
• “In filing the quo warranto case against Sereno, Calida sought the nullification of her appointment as chief justice due to her alleged failure to meet the ‘integrity test’ when she submitted only three of her statements of assets, liabilities and net worth in 2012 when the JBC rules required at least 10 SALNs.” (“Quit, court employees tell CJ; Leni hits quo warranto,” Star, May 8)
• “On Friday, the SC voted 8-6 to grant the quo warranto petition filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida who sought to void Sereno’s 2012 appointment as Chief Justice since she failed to submit her Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) before the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) which set the requirement for applicants.” (“Charter allows removal of impeachable officials by quo warranto – SC,” Bulletin, May 13)

Reports on the quo warranto decision in the three major dailies in the country failed to review previous discussions about Sereno’s SALNs for context.

On the technical side of things, media could have examined the paper trail, checking the JBC’s documents in 2012 on the requirements for the application to the chief justice post. How many SALNs must applicants really submit? How far back in one’s working years in government must an applicant provide proof of submission of the required SALN? What alternative documents or certifications are required should the SALN for a certain period be unavailable? Why, if Sereno failed to comply, did the JBC include her in the short list submitted to the president to consider for appointment? On the missing SALNs in UP, was Sereno’s failure one of compliance or the failure to provide the documentation to prove that she had submitted said SALNs as required by the state university?  If proof was not available, could it have been because the university could no longer provide these records?  If this is a requirement for professors teaching in UP, why then was she kept on the university’s faculty?

Unfortunately, these questions may have been answered by Sereno’s defense and rebuttal that the media pointedly missed in their reports, which by that omission were blatantly one-sided in reporting on the ouster.

The quo warranto looked into Sereno’s fitness after Sereno had held office for almost six years. The time lapse make these questions even more relevant, the answers to which would have helped the public understand better what the quo warranto exercise was really about. It is a measure of media’s failure that these questions never saw the light of day.

In contrast Rappler in its March 20 report asked critical questions: “Where are the 17 SALNs? Did she or did she not file them?” The report listed key points from Sereno’s rebuttals which explained why she could not produce the SALNs for the period when she was a professor at the state university (“Was she required to file? How Sereno explains her missing SALNs”). Any enterprising journalist would have done as Rappler did.

The absence of such information left the public, still reeling from the controversial decision, with no better understanding of the turn of events. While the headlines reflected the significance of the decision, the actual reports on the shake-up in the SC were done on the run, limited to what had already been said, instead of searching for more material and probing deeper into the background of Sereno’s SALN submissions – as this would have helped the public understand the real problem facing Filipinos and to discern the real failure of the exalted office of the Supreme Court into the contentious aspect of the case that is the SALN.