On PCIJ’s report

Cong Corrales .

ALL government workers must adhere to the republic’s code of conduct and ethical standards, the Dutertes included. Once you join government service, you must be accountable to the people. Hell, you chose to work for the people. Nobody held a gun to your head and commanded you to be in government service.

Under Republic Act 6713, all government workers should file a “truthful and complete” statement of their assets, liabilities, and net worth. By saying government workers, it clearly includes the President of the Republic.

On Saturday, the President flung an invective-laden rant against the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Well, he didn’t mention PCIJ by name but it was clear what he meant in his speech in Iloilo that day.

The President took offense on PCIJ’s three-part report, “The Dutertes: Wealth Reveal and Riddles.” He made it sound like he was being singled out. Like a petulant entitled brat, he chose to divulge the source of his family’s wealth in a speech and not through his Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net worth like what government employees ought to do.

Anyone who has read the investigative reports of PCIJ will know that they have reported on all five presidents before him. It would do well for the President not be behave like he has been wronged by journalists who are only doing their job as part of a democratic government’s check and balance.

Instead of aiming his ire at PCIJ, the President should look into his staff at the Office of the President. I have worked with the PCIJ and I know for a fact that they do not publish half-cooked stories. PCIJ’s executive director Malou Mangahas said they invested some six months for the three-part story on the Dutertes.

All, and I mean all, communiques to a story’s sources are well-documented. This includes logging in the date and time of when it was sent and received by the intended office. This is done so that the subject of the story could not whine and say that they were not given space for their side of the story.

Mangahas said they sent two batches of request letters to the President in October last year and again in January, this year. If there is someone that the President should be mad at, it is no other than his legal counsel, the fashion-challenged Salvador Panelo.

I would like to remind that all the other presidents before him were popular, too. It is by adhering to the laws of the Republic that you protect your credibility once your popularity wanes.