Palace ready to rerelease Cabinet SALNs without redactions in assets, liabilities

Malacañang will rerelease the statements of assets, liabilities, and net worth of Cabinet officials without redactions of important information regarding their wealth.

Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella and Presidential Communications Operations Office Assistant Secretary Kris Ablan made the commitment in a briefing in Malacañang on Tuesday.

"The acquisition costs, the total assets, the total net worth, the total liabilities will be disclosed," Ablan said.

Also at the briefing, National Privacy Commission deputy commissioner Ivy Patdu made it clear that details pertaining to a government official's assets, liabilities, and net worth should not be redacted from the SALN.

"If it’s a question of assets, liabilities, and net worth, then of course, that should not be redacted. That is part of what is mandated to be included in any disclosure of the SALN form," she said.

In fact, she said that the details blotched out from the SALN of the Cabinet secretaries such as acquisition costs of personal and real properties, as reported by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, should have been made available to the public.

"They should not be redacted... They should be open to the public and they should be included in the SALN," Patdu said. —KG/KVD, GMA News