COFFEEBREAK
By Manuel “Boy” Mejorada

It’s a bad time for City Mayor Jed Patrick E. Mabilog to be caught with prima facie evidence of unexplained wealth. The Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) is the centerpiece document for public discourse, and he’s going to have a tough time extricating himself from the mess. The charges of unexplained wealth, dishonesty, perjury and grave misconduct I filed against him can’t be parried by an ignoramus like Jepoy Celiz. He will need a legal eagle like retired Associate Justice Serafin Cuevas to defend him before the Ombudsman.

Digging for Mabilog’s SALN was a true investigative journalism exercise. It’s a case that took me more than five months to assemble the pieces of the puzzle and get a solid view of how the city mayor built a fortune as a politician and businessman. But experience proved to be the most important asset for me. And patience, too. I encountered difficulty getting these documents right from the start. Thanks to modern communications, I was able to break through the steel vaults, figuratively speaking, of the Ombudsman’s custodian for SALNs.

As was already reported extensively by the local media, I hailed Mabilog before the Ombudsman for unexplained wealth which is considered a mortal sin under our anti-corruption laws. Being in government is full of temptations, and many civil servants stick to their jobs not because of the opportunity to help their countrymen, but because of the abundant opportunities to get rich. The law provides avenues for civil servants to live comfortable lives, or even acquire substantial wealth, but emphasis is placed on “legitimate” income. At no time must a public servant take advantage of his/her position to amass riches.

In the case of Mabilog, I fully understood from the start that he owned a number of businesses, the latest of which are a string of Mang Inasal restaurant outlets in the national capital region. Hence, I had to carefully examine his business activities, his lifestyle and the magnitude of his wealth. What I found out was a textbook application of the phrase “manifestly out of proportion to his salary and other legal income”.

Before I worked full-time in journalism, I spent eight years as a credit investigator with the Development Bank of the Philippines. That experience gave me the tools to appreciate the intricacies of financial statements. A lot of journalists easily get lost in a maze of numbers, which is how they view balance sheets and trial balances. I feel like a fish in the water with these accounting tools.

Part of the documents I examined were the audited financial reports of Mabilog’s company, Pan Pacific Food Services Inc., which are filed every year with the Securities and Exchange Commission. From the audited reports alone, I already discovered tell-tale signs that Mabilog was drawing on almost a bottomless well of cash to expand his business operations so fast. Mabilog isn’t an Injap, although his fortune rode on the tide of Mang Inasal’s rapid expansion in the fast food industry. Where was he getting the money?

No matter how hard I looked, the reports provided no clues. In other words, it couldn’t be explained where his money came from. For instance, Pan Pacific Food Services Inc. has a paid-up capital of only P250,000. But the latest financial statements showed there was a stockholder’s advances to the company of more than P20 million. Mabilog infused so much money into the business without borrowing from banks. It fitted squarely with the definition of unexplained wealth.

This was validated even further by his own SALN, which had taken me five months to obtain. Between 2007 and 2010, his net worth grew by P26.6 million. That’s in spite of Mabilog’s blatant act of understating the values of certain properties. Obviously, he wanted to hide the magnitude of his wealth. That, in itself, is already a serious misdemeanor punishable under the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. How can he possibly amass additional properties worth P26.6 million when his annual gross family income (which includes the income of his wife) is only P8.4 million in 2010?

After deducting taxes and living expenses, the most that would be left for him to invest is P3 million a year. In three years, that would only be P9 million. Where did he get the difference of P17 million? This is a case of a public official getting caught with his own bait. The fact that he declared all those assets doesn’t mean he can’t be held liable. He will have to show that he had the financial capability to acquire these properties.

What makes this case a serious cause for concern is that automatic preventive suspension clause in the law. Once the Ombudsman commences an investigation, it is duty-bound to put Mabilog under indefinite suspension until it is completed. If I were him, I’d be preparing all the documents to justify the “manifestly” disproportionate leap in his net worth and present it to the Ombudsman at the earliest instance. And in the interest of transparency, Mabilog should also be showing this to the public as well to erase any doubts about the issue.*