MANILA, Philippines — The Office of the Ombudsman should release the long-withheld Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) of former President Rodrigo Duterte now that allegations of money laundering have hounded Duterte in connection to his ties with controversial preacher Apollo Quiboloy, a Makabayan bloc lawmaker said on Monday.
Rep. France Castro (ACT Teachers) said that Duterte’s new role as property administrator of the assets of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ — the church founded by Quiboloy, his close ally and spiritual adviser — has “(raised) more doubts about the connections of the two and talk of money laundering issues between them.”
Duterte's 2017 declaration was his last SALN to be made public. Throughout most of his presidency, which ended in June 2022, the Palace had asserted that the president is only required to file his SALNs with the Office of the Ombudsman, which decides whether to publicize the SALN or not.
However, in 2020, the Office of the Ombudsman under Ombudsman Samuel Martires restricted the public’s access to officials' SALNs, only allowing its release if the requester is an authorized representative, acting on a court order concerning a pending case or part of the Office of the Ombudsman’s fact-finding investigation team.
As this essentially allowed Duterte and other public officials to keep their SALNs from the public eye, critics of Martires’ circular pointed out that it went against the principles of Republic Act (RA) 6713 or Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, which require all public officials to file their SALN.
Castro said that the public remains clueless about “how big (Duterte’s) assets have grown since he became president.”
“How many billions of confidential and intelligence funds has he had access to, but none of these have been subject to proper accounting,” Castro said in Filipino.
“Now that he’s designated as the caretaker of Quiboloy’s assets, we can’t blame the public for thinking there is a money laundering arrangement between (Quiboloy and Duterte)," she added.
The lawmaker added that the ombudsman can “settle such talks” by publicizing Duterte’s SALNs during his whole presidency or from 2016 to 2022.
The former president said he volunteered to manage the assets of KOJC to help Quiboloy — who he described as his "friend" — deal with the controversies brought by the congressional hearings about his alleged abuses, according to his interview with vloggers last week.
Sexual abuse and fraud allegations against Quiboloy came to light in 2021 after a United States court charged the self-appointed “Son of God” with conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion and sex trafficking of children; sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion; conspiracy; and bulk cash smuggling.
These were once again brought up when the Senate launched an investigation into the sexual abuse and trafficking allegations against Quiboloy and other KOJC leaders in January, which Quiboloy refused to attend even after he was cited in contempt by Senate women and gender equality panel chair Sen. Risa Hontiveros.
At one of these Senate hearings, some former KOJC followers testified that they were sexually abused by the KOJC founder for years. A number of overseas Filipino workers who were formerly part of KOJC also said that the KOJC required them to fork over 90% of their earnings to the church, forcing some to give up their homes in the process.
Quiboloy has repeatedly denied these allegations and has continuously invoked his right to due process in refusing to attend committee hearings about his and his KOJC leaders’ alleged crimes. However, Sen. Risa Hontiveros, chair of the Senate panel leading the investigation against him, recently reminded Quiboloy’s camp that the Senate has respected the pastor’s right to due process by allowing him to attend hearings and giving him a 48-hour timeframe to respond to a show cause order for why he should not be cited in contempt.