Category: Freedom of Information

Sheila Coronel: A Golden Age of Global Muckraking at Hand

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By Sheila Coronel*
From Global Investigative Journalism Network

Editor’s Note: We are pleased to present this transcript of the keynote speech by Columbia University’s Sheila Coronel at the 2016 conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors on June 19. Coronel, who has played a key role in spreading investigative journalism worldwide, spoke to 1,850 people — the largest ever gathering of investigative journalists — about networks, collaborations, nonprofits, and a new golden age of global muckraking.
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TEN YEARS AGO, when I first moved to New York and gave my first lecture at the Columbia Journalism School, I told students that I believe we are at the dawn of a Golden Age of global muckraking. They were a great class, but they didn’t believe me.

But look at where we are now: It may not feel like it to some of you, but we are seeing, like never before, an explosion of investigative reporting around the world. There are now over 100 investigative reporting centers and organizations outside the U.S. Today, there are muckrakers even in places like Armenia, Bulgaria, Nepal, Venezuela, the Arab world.

Ten years ago, I told my students that I believe we are at the dawn of a Golden Age of global muckraking. They didn’t believe me.

These watchdog groups have seeded the unprecedented collaboration of journalists working across borders and across newsrooms. This past year has shown us how far international investigative reporting has come. Three examples.

This was the year the Panama Papers shook the world. Some 400 reporters from nearly 80 countries produced stories that made headlines everywhere. Their reporting on a leak of 11 million documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca caused the downfall of Iceland’s prime minister, Spain’s industry minister and Armenia’s most senior justice official. It also sparked tax evasion and money laundering investigations in several continents.

Working together under the direction of the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists, these reporters proved ¬– once and for all – that there is no such thing as offshore secrecy. Thanks to them, tax-evading billionaires, kleptocrats, drug lords and assorted money launderers are quaking in their private jets. They can run but they can’t hide.

Also this year, Seafood from Slaves, an investigation by the Associated Press, won the Pulitzer Prize’s highest honor. A global team of AP reporters found thousands of poor workers from Laos, Burma, and Cambodia held in bondage by operators of Thai fishing vessels.

The AP’s reporting led to the release of 2,000 slaves like Myint Naing, who had been trafficked from Burma and found on one of the Spice Islands in Indonesia. He had been kept 22 years a slave.
Finally, this is also the year the Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova was released from prison.

Khadija was arrested in Dec. 2014 and found guilty of tax evasion, embezzlement and abuse of power. Her reporting had exposed how Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev and his family had snapped up state assets. Using shell companies and nominees, they squirreled their wealth in luxury goods and real estate around the world. And yet it was Khadija, not them, who was accused, tried and jailed.

Khadija would still be behind bars today. But journalists all around the world, including many of you in this room, wrote about her and advocated on her behalf with their own governments and with the EU and the UN.

Her colleagues in the Organized Crime and Corruption Project and elsewhere also collaborated on stories exposing the corruption of the Aliyevs. They called it the Khadija Project, after the IRE’s own Arizona Project.

A lot has been said about how technology has empowered the new global investigative reporting. But it’s not machines that made all this great work possible. It’s people. People like us.

Many of you know that in 1976, a team of investigative reporters from IRE got together after Dan Bolles, an investigative journalist at the Arizona Republic, was killed by a car bomb. They agreed to continue reporting the story that Bolles had not lived to tell.

Their principle was: You can kill the journalist, but not the story.

Similarly, the Khadija Project’s message to the Aliyevs was: You can jail Khadija, but you cannot put an end to exposés. In the end, the Aliyev government realized that the political cost of keeping Khadija in prison outweighed the benefits of setting her free.

Last month, Khadija was released.

A lot has been said about how technology has empowered the new global investigative reporting. The Panama Papers and similar stories benefited from software that allows reporters to communicate and share documents securely across oceans, and from algorithms that enable them to search millions of documents in real time wherever they are.

Dateline New Orleans: Coronel’s record crowd included journalists from 32 countries.

Technology has given us new tools for dealing with big digital leaks and new sources of information, including, as in the case of Seafood from Slaves, ship sensors and satellites.

But let me tell you this: It’s not machines that made all this great work possible. It’s people. People like us. The successes I’ve described demonstrate not so much technological power as collaborative power… the power of individual reporters working together to produce journalism that is greater than the sum of each of their individual efforts.

Since the late 1990s, journalists from around the world have been meeting regularly in conferences and training workshops – like this one — and working jointly on increasingly ambitious cross-border reporting projects. These activities – and also those spirited discussions after hours (and by spirited, I mean alcohol-fueled) – have fostered camaraderie and trust. They have laid the groundwork for a truly global and networked journalism.

The era of the lone wolf is over.

Local and national accountability reporting will continue to be important, but the muckrakers of the future will no longer be so tightly tethered to the nation-state. Crime, corruption, you name it, pollution, human trafficking, money laundering, tax evasion, viruses like Zika, purchases of luxury real estate, the food we eat, the clothes we wear: All these breach national boundaries.

Since the 1990s, journalists from around the world have been meeting regularly in conferences and workshops. These activities have laid the groundwork for a truly global and networked journalism. The era of the lone wolf is over.

And thanks to a global community of muckrakers, the barriers to doing cross-border reporting are no longer insurmountable.

A borderless world needs watchdogs who can transcend borders. The Panama Papers, the Khadija Project, Offshore Leaks are examples of how this can done. They showcase the new global, networked investigative journalism.

Today, the news industry is facing huge challenges in terms of falling revenues. Moreover, all around the world — even in countries that have a free press — governments, corporations and in too many cases, terrorists and demagogues, autocrats and mafia lords, are stifling independent reporting.

There is no silver bullet, no Holy Grail that will end this crisis of news. We are in uncharted terrain. The new, global, networked journalism provides us ONE path forward, ONE model for doing ambitious, high-impact accountability reporting efficiently, rigorously, more cheaply, also more securely.

The most daring and cutting-edge accountability reporting around the world is being done by nonprofits, financially fragile papers or online news sites, and freelancers. They are extremely vulnerable.

This network model is still fluid and evolving. Unlike traditional newsrooms, networked journalism is, for better or for worse, horizontal and non-hierarchical. Membership in the network is informal – there are no membership lists or dues. Members are linked by bonds of reciprocity and trust, and also by self-interest. Units within the network may be competitive, but they choose to share and to work together on specific projects and for particular goals.

Crime and corruption networks work this way and so do jihadist groups. Their activities and lines of communication reach across national borders. Like the mythical Hydra–many heads, hard to find, difficult to exterminate. There are hubs, but no single mission control. Cross-border journalist networks operate the same way, that’s why they are effective. As the Pentagon has now realized about fighting jidhadists, “It takes a network to defeat a network.”

But how can networked journalism be sustained? Until about a decade ago, investigative reporting in the US was robust because it was propped up by a support structure of profitable news organizations that invested in reporting, independent courts that protected press freedom and the right to information, journalism schools that trained the next generation of muckrakers, and prizes that celebrated outstanding work. And of course, there’s IRE. You don’t know how lucky you were, and still are.

Crime and corruption networks reach across national borders. There are hubs, but no single control. Cross-border journalist networks are similar. As the Pentagon now realizes, “It takes a network to defeat a network.”

Elsewhere, there are huge gaps in the support structure. The most daring and cutting-edge accountability reporting around the world is being done by nonprofits, financially fragile newspapers or online news sites, and freelancers. They can barely scrape the money for ambitious reporting. They are also extremely vulnerable to legal harassment and physical threats. In these places, the courts are compromised and governments are unable to protect journalists from those who would them harm.
In too many places, investigative reporting is a high wire act – without a safety net.

Behind its many successes, cross-border investigative reporting is a flickering flame. It needs to be funded and protected. But how and by whom? Who pays for a global public good?

For sure, we have vibrant organizations that keep the fire burning. The Global Investigative Journalism Network is the communications & resource hub for watchdogs around the world. GIJN organizes meetings that bring international journalists to talk about tradecraft. Many of the early collaborative reporting projects were conceived in the corridors of these global conferences.
We have watchdog groups in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and the Arab world that train journalists, bring them together to discuss common issues and problems, and also fund their work. The OCCRP reports on the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, and other regions on the issues of crime and corruption. And of course, you are all familiar with ICIJ’s stellar work as a hub for distributed, cross-border reporting. It’s headquartered in Washington, D.C. but its staff is a microcosm of the world: The ICIJ director is Irish & worked in Australia, his deputy is from Argentina; the data team is headed by a Spaniard, my former student Mar Cabra, and the chief data analyst is Costa Rican. And there are some very talented Americans there, too, of course.

But funding is tight. David Kaplan, the guru of GIJN, estimates that donors invest at most $20 million a year in international investigative reporting.

That’s about 0.2% of the 7 billion pounds worth of London real estate secretly purchased by prime ministers, business magnates and others using offshore companies established by Mossack Fonseca. Thanks to the Panama Papers, The Guardian found all these properties. Seven billion pounds.

In other words, the investment in global investigative reporting pays off. Massively. The reforms that the Panama Papers have set in motion worldwide will hopefully result in billions of dollars in recovered wealth or unpaid taxes. The OCCRP estimates that the total of money frozen or paid in fines since it started work has reached $3 billion.

The Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism has nearly single-handedly introduced investigative reporting techniques and the notion of accountability in the Arab world. In the past 10 years it has trained 1,600 journalists, including the Arab reporters who worked on the Panama Papers. If we know now that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his allies skirted international sanctions by registering shell companies in places like the Seychelles, it’s because of ARIJ.

What a spectacular return on investment.

Where there is despair that nothing can be done, we offer some hope that if we shine the light on the wrongdoing, the world can be a better place. I am proud to be part of this global community of muckrakers.

In the end, however, the most valuable investments in global watchdog reporting have been made by individual journalists willing to put their lives and their freedoms on the line in order to expose wrongdoing. Khadija Ismayilova remained in Azerbaijan to report, knowing that she would sooner or later end up in jail. Not many of us – I hope – will ever be in her situation but we’re inspired by her courage and strength of purpose.

Hamoud Almahmoud continued teaching an investigative reporting course at the University of Damascus, despite the artillery fire around him. “The university was very close to the frontlines of the fighting,” he recalled “I was teaching despite all the shelling.”

Hamoud is in Amman now, where he is research director of ARIJ. But many of his colleagues in Syria have been killed or fled the country. “We see the window of hope is narrowing,” he told me, “but we are surviving and we are still doing stories.”

Lina Attalah edits the independent website Mada Masr in Egypt that could be closed any time under onerous press laws. But she and her young staff continue to do investigative reporting in order, she says, to “activate the conversation, to reopen the political space, and engage the public in conversation.”

Oscar Martinez heads the investigative unit of El Faro, an online news site in El Salvador. He’s received numerous threats for his stories on gang violence and extrajudicial killings. Last year, he had to flee the country. He’s back but he has panic buttons and other security systems in his house. He can’t even take his three-year-old daughter to the park for fear of attack.

Oscar writes beautifully about the most horrific things that people do to each other. Recalling his reporting on migrants crossing from Central America to the US, this is what he told the Texas Observer:

If there are women who had the courage to tell you how they’d been raped along the path… you as a journalist don’t have the right to just pit that back out onto a page. You have to take the time, dedicate energy and put in a lot of work to write this the best way you can so that that person’s story can generate the feeling of impotence, the rage, the compassion and the hate that it should generate.

Writing, he said, is an ethical responsibility.

For Oscar, for Lina, Hamoud and Khadija, as it is for me, and I’m sure many of you, investigative reporting is more than just exposing the bastards, although that is immensely satisfactory. I started reporting during the twilight of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, when the press was so heavily censored, we couldn’t even publish photographs showing Imelda’s double chin. For me, investigative reporting is about opening up spaces, providing facts to inform intelligent public debate, making readers empathize with the suffering of others.

Where there is despair that everything is broken and nothing can be done, we offer some hope that if we shine the light on the wrongdoing, the world can be a better place. I am proud to be part of this global community of muckrakers. We can; we should; we must keep going and I hope – I KNOW – we will all stand together.

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*Sheila S. Coronel is Dean of Academic Affairs at the Columbia Journalism School and director of the school’s Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism. She is co-founder and former executive director of the pioneering Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, based in Manila.

101 political clans rule polls in top 20 vote-rich provinces

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By Rowena F. Caronan
Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

PCIJ Top Clans pol parties, may 2016

THROUGHOUT THE 24 years of elections in the Philippines’s 20 provinces with the most number of registered voters, family names on the ballots seem to keep repeating themselves, the same ones popping up over and over again. It’s a situation that goes against the equal access to opportunities for public service guaranteed by the 1987 Constitution. Then again, the Charter also talks about prohibiting political dynasties “as may be defined by law,” but just look where we are now.

Based on the list of candidates from the 1992 to 2013 elections from the Commission on Elections (Comelec), about 10,000 persons had repeatedly occupied 17,673 elective posts in six of the nation’s 20 vote-rich provinces. They have held positions of power from the local level to the halls of Congress simply by belonging to political clans that have continued to hold sway over communities large and small across the country for the last quarter of a century.

Various members of these political clans that litter Comelec’s list often take the same positions again and again. Members of a clan are also usually elected all at the same time for different posts. It is also not uncommon to see members of the same family fighting against each other in an electoral race.

A few members of these families have even found their way to a political career through barangay elections, or turned to barangay positions after failed local bids. This has been a common practice, despite barangay officials supposedly being non-partisan in nature. A number of them have also managed to install their members to national positions, including the highest one that enabled their family to wield power from within the Palace along the Pasig River.

PCIJ analyzed Comelec’s data on the list of candidates in six of the 20 vote-rich provinces from the 1992 elections. These six have a combined voters’ strength of 10.86 million or 20 percent of the latest count of total registered voters of 55.7 million.

The Comelec data showed at least 101 different family names that are each tied to at least eight electoral successes in the last eight elections, excluding the town council seats. These family names are shared and carried by as many as 1,159 elected officials.

The top 10 most recurring family names in the Comelec’s list of candidates, or those that have more than four members who won their electoral contests and have at least 17 electoral victories over the last eight elections, include the following:

• Durano, Garcia, Martinez, and Yapha in Cebu in central Visayas, which is home to five percent of the country’s voting population and has an economy trailing that of Metro Manila;
• Celeste, Espino, and Perez in Pangasinan in northern Luzon, which is the richest province in Ilocos region;
• Alvarez, Lacson, and Maranon in Negros Occidental in the newly created Negros Island region with the highly urbanized city of Bacolod as the center; and
• Bautista in Davao del Sur in the southeastern part of Mindanao.

PCIJ.Cebu pol parties, may 2016

Duranos top ’em all

Among the six provinces, the Duranos emerged as having the most electoral wins: 57 from the 1992 to 2013 polls. The Duranos were followed by the Lacson family with 25, the Bautistas and Perezes with 22, the Martinezes with 20; the Celestes and Maranons with 19; the Garcias with 18; and the Alvarezes, Espinos, and Yaphas with 17.

An average of seven Durano members has simultaneously won at the congressional and provincial elections as well as in Danao City and the towns of Samboan and Sogod.

In the 2013 elections, 10 Duranos won their electoral contests. Thus far, this is the highest number a political clan in Cebu has achieved in a single poll in the last two decades. Such number could be next to the record set by the Ampatuans of Mindanao who enjoyed at least 15 electoral victories in 2013 despite being implicated in the country’s worst electoral violence yet in 2009.

Danao City and the rest of Cebu’s fifth congressional district have remained the Durano’s family territory in which they have held onto their seats consistently for 24 years. The fifth district is home to 12 percent of Cebu’s voters. Danao City is a third-class city, but ranks sixth based on the number voters among Cebu’s 53 cities and municipalities.

Ramon ‘Nito’ Durano III and his sons Joseph Felix Mari or Ace and Ramon VI or Red have taken turns sitting in Congress since 1992. Ace is the incumbent congressman of Cebu’s 5th District, while Nito is currently serving as mayor of Danao City. The mayoral seat was previously held by Nito’s brother Jesus and nephew Ramon IV.

Nito’s other siblings and their children are also in politics, including Beatriz, Thaddeus, Ramon Jr., and Rose Marie. Rose Marie and Beatriz married into significant political clans in the northern and southern Cebu towns. Rose Marie’s husband, Celestino Sybico, hails from Balamban; Beatriz’s spouse Emerito Calderon is from Samboan. Vicente T. Pimentel Jr., brother-in-law of Nito’s wife, is also a politician from Carrascal, Surigao del Sur. The Duranos’ third-generation politicians who appeared frequently as well on Comelec’s list are Beatriz’s sons Raymond Joseph and Emerito Jr. Calderon; Lydia’s son Oscar D. Rodriguez Jr.; Thaddeus’s daughter Lissa Marie D. Streegan; Ramon Jr.’s son Ramon IV; Nito’s children Ace, Red, Thomas Mark, and Carmen Remedios D. Meca; Jesus’s son Ramon V; and Rose Marie’s son Jude Thaddeus Sybico. The Duranos are cousins to Cebu Vice Governor Agnes Magpale, who is also related to the Almendrases of Cebu.

PCIJ Negros Occidental pol parties, may 2016

With 25 electoral wins, the Lacsons of Negros Occidental are next to the Duranos in the highest number of electoral victories over the last 24 years. Four incumbent officials belong to the Lacson clan, including Jose Carlos Lacson, Andrew Montelibano, Eugenio Jose Lacson, and Ernest Lacson Jr. They have been elected in the province’s third congressional district and in the local offices of San Carlos City and the town of Murcia. San Carlos City is a second-class city, whereas Murcia is a first-class municipality.

Bautistas, Perezes next

The Bautistas of Davao del Sur and Perezes of Pangasinan come next with 22 electoral victories each.

Five Bautistas occupy various posts in the second district of Davao del Sur, as well as the mayoral seat of Malita town. Malita, a first-class municipality, is now the capital of newly created province of Davao Occidental. The Bautistas were also present at the provincial level with two members of the clan both once elected as governor. One of the two was also elected as vice governor, the other as member of the provincial council.

Benjamin Bautista Sr. is the late clan patriarch. He was Malita mayor in the 1960s and served as Davao del Sur 2nd District representative from 1987 to 1998. His son Franklin took over his seat in Congress, occupying it from 1998 to 2001 and then from 2007 to 2013. Franklin also replaced Benjamin as Malita mayor from 1992 to 1998 and 2001 to 2007. Another of Benjamin’s sons, Claude, entered politics in 1995 and was elected as member of the provincial council. Claude replaced his brother as Malita mayor in 1998 and as congressman in 2001 and 2004. Claude became the second Bautista to be elected governor in 2013.

PCIJ Davao del Sur pol parties, may 2016

Meanwhile, the Comelec data yielded two Perez families in Pangasinan. One family includes brothers Amadeo Jr. and Eduardo; Amadeo’s son, Amadeo Gregorio IV and Jose Angelo; and nephew Antonino and niece Rosary Gracia P. del Val. These Perezes have actively participated in Urdaneta City’s local politics since 1992, serving in Pangasinan’s fifth congressional district and Urdaneta City’s mayoral office. Urdaneta, a second-class city, is third in most number of voters among Pangasinan’s 48 towns.

In 2010, Eduardo ran in the barangay elections when he lost his bid for a seat in the council. Two of Amadeo’s sons also began their political careers as barangay captains. Amadeo Gregorio IV was the president of the Association of Barangay Captains and Jose Angelo, head of Barangay Anonas. Amadeo Gregorio IV later replaced his father as mayor.

The second set of Perezes rules the town of San Manuel, a first-class municipality that has a voting population that is only a third of Urdaneta City’s. This family has as politicians Salvador and his three children Alain Jerico, Salvador Jr., and Sheila Marie; and Salvador’s nephew, Pancho Jr.

PCIJ. Pangasinan pol parties, may 2016

The family has remained unseated in the mayoral seat of San Manuel since 1992, except from 1998 to 2001. Salvador served as mayor from 1992 to 1998 and 2001 to 2010. His brother Pancho had taken a shot at being mayor in 1998, but lost in the polls. He is succeeded in 2010 by his son Alain Jerico, who held the vice mayoral seat from 2007 to 2010. Then Salvador also assumed his son’s vice mayoral seat from 2010 to present. Other members of the family were elected as councilors, including Salvador Jr. (2010 to 2013) and Sheila and Pancho Jr. (2013 to 2016.)

Martinezes, Celestes, Marañons

The Martinezes of Cebu, meanwhile, have had 20 electoral victories from 1992 to 2013. At least six Martinezes have been elected into office, representing Cebu’s 4th District from 1992 to 2007 and occupying the mayoral offices of Bogo City and the town of San Remigio from 2001 to present. Bogo city is a sixth-class city, whereas San Remigio is a third-class town.

Among the Martinezes is Celestino Jr. who served in Congress from 1992 to 1998 and as Bogo City mayor from 2007 to present. His wife Clavel took over his seat in Congress from 1998 to 2007, and their son Celestino III served as mayor of Bogo City from 2001 to 2007.

Next with 19 electoral victories each are the Celestes of Pangasinan and Marañons of Negros Occidental.

Eight members of the Celeste family have served in Congress and in the local offices of the fourth-class city of Alaminos and the first-class municipality of Bolinao. Bolinao’s mayoral seat has been held consecutively by siblings Jesus, Alfonso, and Arnold since 1995. Jesus served from 1995 to 2001; Alfonso, from 2001 to 2010; and Arnold, from 2013 to 2016.

Jesus was elected in 2010 and 2013 as congressman in Pangasinan’s first district, replacing his brother Arthur, who held the same position from 2001 to 2010. In 2013, Arthur was elected mayor of Alaminos City. Another sibling George served as Bolinao councilor from 1998 to 2007 and 2010 to present. A cousin, also named George, is currently in his last term as councilor.

At the barangay level, another Celeste cousin Romeo was barangay captain of Barangay Germinal in Bolinao from 2010 to 2013. Arthur’s daughter Kazel was president of Sangguniang Kabataan Provincial Federation from 2007 to 2010.

PCIJ.Laguna pol parties, may 2016
The Marañons, for their part, dominated the politics of Negros Occidental’s second district and the third- class city of Sagay. Members of the clan were also elected four times as governor of the province.

In 1992, Joseph Marañon was elected mayor of Sagay City. He was re-elected in 1995 and 1998 before he secured the gubernatorial seat in 2001; he held to the provincial post for three terms. His brother Alfredo was congressman from 1995 to 2004, Sagay City mayor from 2007 to 2010, and governor from 2010 to 2013.

Alfredo III replaced his father Alfredo in Congress and served from 2004 to 2010. He also assumed the mayoral seat in 2010; he was elected for a second term in 2013. A nephew, Leo Rafael Cueva, took over as Negros Occidental 2nd District Representative in 2013.

Garcias, Yaphas, Alvarezes

Then there are the Garcias of Cebu, with 18 electoral victories. Leading the Garcia clan is patriarch Pablo Sr., who served as Cebu’s three-term governor from 1995 to 2004. He was also congressman in the province’s third district from 1987 to 1995 and in the second district from 2007 to 2013. His daughter Gwendolyn or Gwen succeeded him in the provincial capitol and completed her third consecutive three-year term in 2013. Gwendolyn then assumed the congressional seat her brother, Pablo John, held from 2007 to 2013 in the third district. Pablo Sr.’s other sons, Marlon and Nelson Gamaliel, took local posts in the towns of Barili and Dumanjug, where they served, respectively, as vice mayor and mayor. Winston, another of Pablo’s sons, was Cebu provincial board member from 1992 to 1995.

Last on the top 10 list of families with the most electoral wins are the Alvarezes, Espinos, and Yaphas, all of whom have 17 electoral victories each.

The Yaphas of Cebu rule the province’s third district and second-class town of Pinamungahan. The family consists of Antonio Jr., his wife Estrella, and children, Geraldine and Jeffrey. At present, however, only Antonio Jr. is in public office, serving as vice mayor of Toledo City.

In Negros Occidental are five elected Alvarezes, including Genaro Jr., his wife Mercedes, sons Genaro Rafael III and John Paul, and daughter-in-law Joyce. The family has simultaneously held electoral posts in the province’s sixth congressional district and the second-class town of Ilog. Genaro Jr. was provincial board member from 1992 to 1995. He served in Congress from 1995 to 2004 and 2007 to 2010. He then won the vice gubernatorial race in the 2010 elections. He was succeeded by his son Genaro Rafael III in Congress from 2004 to 2007, and by his wife from 2010 to present. Another son, John Paul, was Ilog’s mayor from 1998 to 2007 and from 2010 to 2013. John Paul’s wife Joyce took over the mayoral seat from 2007 to 2013.

PCIJ.Cavite pol parties, may 2016

In Pangasinan, the Espino name comes up frequently in the politics of the province’s second district and poor town of Bautista.

The political Espinos include siblings Amado Jr., Amadeo, and Jose. Amado Jr.’s sons, Amado III and Jumel Anthony, and Jose’s son Joseph. Nephews Armando and Joshua and niece Nerissa are also politicians. The family has remained firmly on the mayoral seat of Bautista town since 1995, the post occupied first by Jose and then Amado III. Amadeo took over the position later. –– PCIJ, May 2016
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For details, check out PCIJ’s Money Politics Online

SALN files of wannabe presidents writ in opaque, loose, curious parts

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By The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

PCIJ’s Wealth Check Reports on the Candidates for President:

* JEJOMAR BINAY, United Nationalist Alliance
* MIRIAM DEFENSOR-SANTIAGO, People’s Reform Party
* RODRIGO DUTERTE, PDP-Laban
* GRACE POE, Galing at Puso
* MANUEL ROXAS II, Liberal Party

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THEY ARE MULTIMILLIONAIRES, affluent and ambitious to the last.

On Monday, May 9, Filipinos will get to pick one among them to be president, and another to be vice president, of the nation.

The candidates themselves have tried to make it easier for voters to choose. Months ahead of the official campaign period, for instance, four of the five candidates for president and five of the six for vice president rolled out multibillion pesos worth of television ads to win the favor of the 55.7-million registered Filipino voters at home and overseas.

That kind of spending, of course, is alien to majority of Filipino voters. Strapped by a lack of choices and resources, most Filipinos are so unlike the candidates who are invariably awash in wealth, status, and perks.

Politics is writ in riddles, indeed. Why, for instance, should class wish to serve mass for a pittance? And a pittance it is, even with the salary standardization law that passed this year raising the President’s monthly salary to P400,000.

That adjustment in pay takes effect in the next administration. Until then, the country’s chief executive’s lawful monthly pay remains at about P120,000 before tax, or multiplied by 13 months, P1.56 million a year. That adds up to at most P9.36 million throughout his/her six-year full term equivalent to 78 months. And because that salary rate falls under the taxman’s 32-percent bracket, the President’s lawful salary, net of tax, has actually been much less, at just about P80,000 a month.

Yet, to get to power, a presidential or vice-presidential candidate must burn billions. Today, political analysts say, a candidate for president may need from P3 billion to P5 billion to bankroll a decent election campaign across the nation.

To be sure, before the path to power, all the current candidates for the nation’s top two posts had taken a journey to wealth. By the available documents, though, their wealth stories are often opaque or wanting in clarity and detail, or even loose and wobbly at the seams.

PCIJ took a look at the state of wealth of the five candidates for president:

• Vice President Jejomar ‘Jojo’ Binay of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA);
• Davao City Mayor Rodrigo ‘Digong’ Duterte of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) Party;
• Sen. Mary Grace Poe Llamanzares, of the Galing at Puso slate;
• Former Local Government Secretary Manuel ‘Mar’ Roxas II of the administration Liberal Party (LP); and
• Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago of the People’s Reform Party (PRP).

PCIJ also looked at the state of wealth of six candidates for vice president:

• Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano of the Nacionalista Party (NP) and Duterte’s running mate;
• Sen. Francis Joseph ‘Chiz’ Escudero, Poe’s running mate;
• Sen. Gregorio ‘Gringo’ Honasan, Binay’s running mate;
• Sen. Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. of the NP and Defensor-Santiago’s running mate;
• Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, Independent, but also an NP member; and
• Camarines Sur Rep. Maria Leonor ‘Leni’ Robredo of the LP and Roxas’s running mate.

In their latest statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs) filed in April 2014, the presidential candidates of May 2016 have declared modest to mammoth net worth. Except for Duterte and Poe, however, the latest SALN for the year 2015 of the other candidates have yet to be released to the public. PCIJ has also obtained copies of the SALN for 2015 of three candidates for vice president: Escudero, Robredo, and Trillanes.

To establish a baseline of wealth for each of the candidates, PCIJ reviewed the SALNs they had filed in prior years, starting with their respective first year in public service as either elective or appointive officials. Because some candidates had served longer in government, and others for just brief periods of time, the breadth or timeline of wealth could not be established in identical manner for all the candidates.

In the course of doing this story, PCIJ noticed that some of the candidates had close family members occupying or had occupied significant political posts. Available SALNs of these family members were therefore reviewed as well to come up with a more complete wealth narrative for the candidates involved.

The battle for the presidency is a five-way affair: three men (Binay, Duterte, and Roxas) and two women (Poe and Defensor-Santiago) are slugging it out. Four of the five are incumbents (Binay, Duterte, Poe, and Defensor-Santiago). The fifth, Roxas, quit his latest post as Interior and Local Government secretary in October 2015 to prepare for his presidential run.

All five wannabe-presidents declared big net worth values in their respective SALN for 2014. The latest available for Binay, Defensor-Santiago, and Roxas were their 2014 SALN but PCIJ has also obtained copies of the SALN for 2015 of Duterte and Poe.

As of their 2014 SALN, by order of claimed penury, by net worth, the “poorest” is Duterte with P21.9 million, followed by Binay with P60.25 million, Defensor-Santiago with P73.03 million, Poe with P89.5 million, and Roxas with P202.08 million.

(Duterte in his SALN for 2015 declared a slightly higher net worth of P23.5 million, as of last yearend.)

But as a group, how the wealth of the five presidentiables rose, fell, and rose again while in public office is a story with neither logic nor symmetry.

Two candidates — Poe and Roxas — enrolled properties inherited from their parents, or through court orders with zero acquisition value, thus artificially deflating or denting what might be the true expanse of their wealth.

A manual issued by the Civil Service Commission (CSC) on how to comply with “The SALN Law” or Republic Act No. 6713 (Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees) spells out the following modes of acquisition of real properties:

• Purchase
• Donation
• Inheritance
• Trust
• Exchange
• As a consequence of contract (tradition)
• Occupation
• Intellectual creation
• Law, or by order of the court
• Prescription

The CSC manual states, however, that “in case of purchase by installment of immovable, the equity and amortizations so far paid should be declared as Equity in Installment Purchases under Other Personal Property, rather than Real Property (even if the contract may be registered with the register of deeds).”

“It is only when the Real Property is fully paid and title transfers to the buyer that the property is declared as a Real Property in the SALN,” the manual stated.

Too, there is a discernible shift from listing mostly real to more personal and other properties – which has less and weaker documentation, and thus could be easily hidden — in the SALNs that the five presidential candidates have filed through the years. The most notable signs of this shift to personal properties are the bursting “cash on hand/in bank” and investments in stocks they declared in their SALNs.

Then again, some of the candidates have also declared bigger and bigger amounts of liabilities to creditors or agencies not fully named in their SALN. Yet, despite their growing liabilities, these candidates have declared bigger net worth values through the years. — PCIJ, May 2016
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For details, check out PCIJ’s Money Politics Online

Wealth Check: JEJOMAR BINAY

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By The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

PCIJ. JEJOMAR BINAY SALN Timeline. may 2016

JEJOMAR ‘JOJO’ BINAY marked his Year 1 in public office as OIC (officer-in-charge) mayor of the country’s premier financial district, Makati City, in 1989 with a net worth of only P2.9 million.

Twenty-five years hence in 2014, this grew to P60.2 million, but also a cumulative 20 times more from his first year in office. He has filed a total of 23 SALNs, copies of nearly all on file at the PCIJ.

His 2014 net worth consists of the following entries: real properties valued at P13.92 million, personal and other properties of P62.38 (total assets: P76.3 million), and liabilities of P16 million.

But in 1989, Binay started with just the following: P183,445 in real properties, P3.7 million in personal and other properties, and liabilities of P2.87 million.

The year he was elected vice president in 2010 was also the year that Binay marked the biggest leap in his net worth. From just P44.8 million in his 2009 SALN, he reported a net worth of P58.09 million, including real properties of P16.88 million, personal and other properties of P42.7 million, and liabilities of only P1.5 million.

His 2014 SALN also saw a P10-million uptick in his personal and other properties from 2013: P52.3 million to P62.38 million, even as the value of his real properties stood still at P13 million.

Curiously, Binay’s liabilities of only P6.05 million in 2013 more than doubled in 2014 to P16.05 million, and a P20-million variance in his net worth. In his 2014 SALN, he said he owed unnamed creditors P10 million in personal loans, P5.7 million in auto loans, and P370,000 other liabilities.

For all the accusations of alleged plunder and unexplained wealth against Binay in months of public hearing by the Senate’s Blue Ribbon subcommittee, the Vice President did not declare owning any houses or apartments in his 2014 SALN. All that he listed as real properties were three pieces of residential and agricultural lots in Makati worth just slightly over P13 million.

But Binay seems to be rolling in dough. He declared having P38.8 million in cash on hand and in bank, apart from P4.2-million invested in growing flowers and pigs. His SALN for 2014 lists only one business entity: Blooms & Bouquet Flower Shop located at Unit 3, Southway Condominium, Mayapis Street, San Antonio Village, Makati City. It has a “nursery” in Batangas that Binay said he co-owns with his wife and former Makati Mayor Dr. Elenita Binay.

It was only in his SALN filing for the years 1999 to 2009 that Binay disclosed having interest in a second business second entity: JCB Farms, a piggery located in Maligaya, Rosario, Batangas. He acknowledged, though, that his “acquisition of/connection with” JCB Farms started years earlier in 1995.

In addition, the Vice President has a fleet of vehicles, including a Ford Club Wagon and Toyota Land Cruiser, altogether worth P11 million; P6.2 million in “furniture, antiques, clothing and other personal properties”; P1.1 million in jewelry; and P829,000 in “prepaid income tax/creditable withholding tax.”

Among the presidentiables, Binay and Duterte are the only ones whose immediate family members have held prominent political posts. Politics, in fact, has practically become a family business for both Binay and Duterte.

Jojo and Elenita Binay and son Jejomar Erwin Jr. or Junjun have taken turns serving as mayor of the financial district of Makati City since 1987 — an uninterrupted 29-year reign of the clan in Makati City.

In the three years that she served as Makati City mayor from 1997 to 2000, Elenita Binay filed four SALNs jointly with her husband, all marked with constantly rising values of their conjugal net worth.

She started with P15.82 million in her 1997 SALN, P17.49 million in 1998, P20.06 million in 1999, and P24.37 million in 2000. (From 1998 to 1999, while his wife was Makati mayor, Jojo Binay worked as chairperson of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority or MMDA as an appointee of then President Joseph Estrada.)

Daughter Mar-Len Abigail has served two terms (2010-2016) as congressman and is now running for Makati mayor, while the eldest Binay child, Ma. Lourdes Nancy, remains senator until 2019.

Abigail’s husband is Luis Jose Angel N. Campos, now candidate for the Congress seat that she is vacating, while Nancy’s spouse is businessman Jose Benjamin R. Angeles.

Currently suspended Makati City Mayor Junjun Binay became a city councilor straight from college (where he majored in creative writing and public administration) and Abigail, from law school. Before plunging into national politics in 2010, Nancy, a tourism graduate, had her hands full as a wife and mother and as a partner in her husband’s family businesses.

A third Binay daughter, Anne, works as executive assistant at the Vice President’s office. Only the youngest child Joanna Marie is not in public service on either elective or appointive capacity.

All told, the combined net worth by 2014 of the four Binays currently in elective public posts had amounted to a handsome sum of P191,155,922. The combined value of all their real assets and personal properties for 2014 was a whopping P322,861,763. Their combined liabilities, meanwhile, was a significant P131,706,041.

Notably, the sharp uptick in the net worth that the Binays had declared in separate SALNs similarly occurred before or after the years when elections were conducted in the country: 1998-1999, 2000-2001, 2003-2004, 2007-2008, 2009-2010, and 2012-2013.

PCIJ. Binay SALN may 2016alth

Individually, the three older Binay children in public office are more than affluent, even if they have not really had enough years or opportunity to grow their wealth by leaps and bounds outside of politics.

Junjun started with a net worth of P1.1 million on his first run as councilor of Makati in 1998, when he was just 21 years old. By 2014, at age 37, he was declaring a net worth of P19.34 million on just his salary as mayor.

He reported liabilities of P5,000 as income tax payable; P25.99 million in loans payable; P6.26 million in other payables; and P841,000 in auto loans.

Now a widower raising three children, Junjun declared purchasing various real properties (residential, mix-use) from 1996 to 2005 in Tagaytay City in Cavite; and in Nasugbu and Loco in Batangas.

But his personal properties saw a tremendous surge in value beginning 2005 while he was still a councilor and on to becoming mayor in 2010.

In his SALN for 2014, Junjun Binay declared having P13.2 million cash on hand and in bank, P24.7 million in investments; P5.5 million in art, jewelry, and other personal properties; P3.3 million in vehicles; P3.72 million in furniture, antiques, and appliances; and P535,000 more in other unspecified personal assets.

In 1999, when he first filed his SALN as councilor, Junjun had only these personal properties: P4.16 million cash on hand and in bank; P1.3 million in vehicles; P575,000 in stocks; P564,210 in furniture and antiques; and P587,280 in jewelry.

From 1999 to 2014—the period during which he was working his way from councilor to vice mayor, to mayor of Makati — Junjun Binay said he was a shareholder or had acquired interests in a plethora of business entities, notably:

• Dinette;
• Greenwich;
• Savona Estate Inc.;
• Hermitage & Manor Realty & Management Corp.;
• Millenium (sic) Food Chains Corp.;
• First Responder Safety Solutions Inc. , as shareholder;
• Stony Road Horse Farm Inc., as shareholder;
• Balagan Sporting Equipment Inc., as shareholder;
• Seahawk Retail Ventures Inc., as shareholder;
• Lakan Tagkan Real Estate Corp., as shareholder; and
• Bravehouse Holdings Inc., as shareholder.

Makati City 2nd District Rep. Abigail Binay, meanwhile, has a net worth as of 2014 of P48.99 million — assets of P78.40 million minus liabilities of P29.4 million — according to an official report of the House of Representatives on the 2014 SALN of its members.

Abigail’s net worth has undergone remarkable growth from only P10.7 million in 2007 to P14.1 million in 2012, to P29.4 million in 2008.

Among her real properties, Abigail listed the following, and their various modes of acquisition from 2000 to 2009, or before she joined Congress:

• Lobo, Batangas, 2005, sale;
• Lobo, Batangas, 2005, purchase;
• Biga Sto. Tomas, Isabela, 2008, donation;
• Langkaan, Dasmarinas, Cavite, donation;
• Biclatan, Gen. Trias, Cavite, 2000, purchase; and
• San Lorenzo Village, Makati, 2009, purchase.

The last property, according to Abigail, had an acquisition cost of only P3.17 million, fair market value of P10.19 million, and acquisition-cost-plus-improvements value of P14 million flat.

In her SALN filings from 2010, Abigail listed the interests and financial connections that she said she acquired from 1992 to 2008, or before she was elected legislator:

• MAS Binay Enterprise, supposedly a “Consumer Distributor of SMART ELOAD and others”;
• Subido Pagente Certeza Mendoza and Binay Law Office, as a Partner;
• Hermitage and Manor Realty and Management Corp.;
• Millenium (sic) Food Chains, Inc.;
• Xnails, Inc.;
• Petsters Company, as a Partner;
• A & T Stores Specialists, Inc. ;
• Dalisay Farms Corporation, with spouse Luis N. Campos, Jr. as Stockholder;
• L & N Food Corporation, with Luis N. Campos, Jr.;
• Dasmarinas Realty Corporation, with Luis N. Campos, Jr.; and
• Vartec Food Concepts Inc., with Luis N. Campos, Jr.

Abigail also listed among her personal properties that were acquired from 1994 to 1997 stocks in Kuko-Phil. Petron valued at P25,201; paintings worth P471,500; life insurance cash option credits of P308,480; jewelry worth P1 million; vehicles worth P9.66 million; capital in business worth P10.77 million; and P10.32 million cash on hand and in bank.

In 1994, Abigail was just 19 years old. It was only in 1997 when she graduated from the University of the Philippines in Los Banos with a degree in B.S. Human Ecology. In 2001, she obtained her Juris Doctor degree from the Ateneo de Manila University.

Abigail’s official profile on the website of the House of Representatives showed her brief work experience as follows: Chief Finance Officer of JCB Farms from 2002 to 2005; Legal Associate, Balane Tamase Alampay Law Office, Legal Associate, July 2003 – March 2007; and Partner, Subido Pagente Certeza Mendoza and Binay Law Office, March 2007 to June 2007.

In all her available SALN, however, Abigail has not disclosed her business or financial interests in JCB Farms.

Among her liabilities, she enrolled the following across her various SALN filings:

• Tax-income tax, P2,320,317.27;
• Chattel Mortgage, P1,359,717.69;
• Chattel Mortgage, Banco de Oro, P1,658,249;
• Premium Loan (unpaid life insurance premium), P259,622.43;
• Chattel Mortgage, Banco de Oro, P1,745,160;
• Loan, SPCMB Law Office, P12,000,000; and
• Company-related liabilities, P966,402.88.

As for Senator Nancy Binay, she declared a net worth in June 2013 of P63.94 million upon assumption into office. This dipped a bit to P63.8 million in December 2014, and went down a little more to P62.56 million by December 2014.

Nancy’s SALN filings for 2013 and 2014 show that she is the proprietor since 1999 of Jajan Marketing and a shareholder from 1994 to 2006, together with spouse, in the following business interests:

• J.A. Development Corporation;
• AB Summit Insurance Agency, Inc.;
• Purple Ginger Inc.;
* St. Andrew’s A-C Services Inc.;
• Dinet Marketing Corporation;
• Mistico Inc.;
• Hermitage & Manor Realty & Management Corp.;
• Tetrarchy Inc.;
• Aquastar Consolidated Environmental Services Inc.; and
• Supremecapital Corporation.

For her liabilities, Nancy listed the following in her latest SALN:

• Income tax payables, Bureau of Internal Revenue, P2,615,789;
• Loans payable, Various, P11,000,000; and
• Other payables, Various, P22,610,275. — PCIJ, May 2012
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For details, check out PCIJ’s Money Politics Online

Wealth Check: MIRIAM DEFENSOR

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By The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

PCIJ. MIRIAM DEFENSOR SANTIAGO SALN Timeline, may 2016

MIRIAM DEFENSOR-SANTIAGO’s first SALN on record with PCIJ was filed for the year 1994. In it she declared a net worth of P48 million.

Nearly two decades later, in 2014, she enrolled a net worth of P73.03 million, or nearly twice more than when she started. It consisted of a pithy P2.9 million in real properties, a staggering P123.03 million in personal and other properties, and P50 million in liabilities.

Santiago’s SALN narrative exemplifies the shift from real assets to personal properties, a discernible trend in the SALN filings of many senior elective officials through the years.

Until 2008, Santiago had enrolled among her assets a posh house and lot in La Vista, Quezon City, which she said she acquired on a loan in 1992 for P27 million. But from 2009 to 2014, her SALN no longer lists this property among her real assets. Instead, in these years, Defensor-Santiago enrolled the house to be her “official address.”

The remaining real assets she enrolled are eight pieces of lots and houses in Iloilo and Tarlac that she reportedly inherited. In contrast to her receding real assets, the senator’s “cash in bank” entry – P10 million in 2004 to P40 million in P2014 – bloated her personal and other properties.

In her first available SALN filed for the year 1994, Santiago started with a significant P48.99 million in real properties, and only P8.21 million in personal properties. The value of her real assets reached a peak in 1999, at P100.39 million.

By her 2008 SALN, Santiago said she still owned a significant amount of real assets — P49,630.100 — and only P48,125,876 of personal and other properties. Her total assets that year came up to P97,755,986.

A big change came in 2009 when her SALN showed a marked shift in the weights she assigned to her total assets of P101,305,986. She enrolled a measly P4,180,100 for her real assets, and a huge P101,125,876 for personal properties.

In her 2014 SALN, Santiago declared business and financial interests in six entities:

• Narsan Holdings, Inc., since March 2002;
• DEFSAN Corporation, since March 2009;
• NARC MIR Corporation, since March 2009;
• NS & MD Corporation, since March 2009;
• NMAM Corporation, since March 2009; and
• Defensor Santiago Law Firm, since October 1990.

Interestingly, the offices of all six business concerns are located at NARSAN Building on No. 3 West Fourth Street, West Triangle, Quezon City, a property apparently owned by her family.

Six years earlier in 2008, she had declared business interest only in Narsan Holdings.

In 2009, she expanded her involvement in four more business entities: DEFSAN Corp., NARC MIR Corp., NS & MD Corp., and NMAM Corp.

PCIJ. Defensor SALN may 2016

Santiago lost in her first electoral bid for the presidency in 1992, claiming that rival Fidel V. Ramos cheated her of victory. In 1994, she declared a net worth P48 million only — P57.20 million in total assets minus P9.2 million in total liabilities.

Her wealth status would fall, and then rise again, years later.

In 1998, her net worth was P40.9 million — P70.64 million in assets (including P58.99 in real properties) minus P25 million in liabilities.

In 1999, her net worth climbed to P61.6 million — P113.89 million in assets (including P100.39 million in real properties) minus P52.29 million in liabilities.

In 2000, however, Santiago’s net worth was reduced to a third of its 1999 value — P32.89 million. It consisted of P115.89 million in assets (including P97.39 million in real properties) and a huge P83.00 million in liabilities. Santiago did not declare interest in any business entity in the year 2000. — PCIJ, May 2016
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For details, check out PCIJ’s Money Politics Online