Missing (FO) Information

President Aquino’s third State of the Nation Address was uplifting and inspirational. P-Noy has leveled up to a transformational leader. With sincerity, consistency and simplicity, he has set the goals and principles of his government, and practiced what he preached. And so the people followed.

The usual implacable detractors in politics and media were quick to question the veracity of his numbers. But this dubious group does not command public trust, so their attacks merely bounce-back to already blackened psyches. Also, the noisier ones were the very same who needed to justify their own sins against the people.

A valid question though that begs for some explanation is why the pending Freedom of Information bill was conspicuously left out in the SONA, unlike the Sin Tax and RH bill? The FOI was listed as one of the priority bills last January 2012, but it went unmentioned. Is it because, as some claim, the FOI is not a stomach issue? Was that why it was excluded from the 90-minute speech that concentrated on gains that could be tasted, seen, heard, smelled or felt? Does this mean that the Palace is no longer keen on pushing FOI, despite Speaker Belmonte’s call for a vote?

If you ask the man-on-the-street what Freedom of Information means, he will most likely have a blank stare. It’s another one of those magniloquent titles that don’t mean much to most Filipinos. So the tendency is to mistake the lack of understanding for lack of interest.

But if Juan knew that the FOI would have flashed out the exorbitant cost of those garish lampposts that line Roxas boulevard at less than 20 meters apart, priced at over P200,000 each; or if he grasped the implications of the justices’ SALNs kept under lock-and-key, away from prying eyes; or who funded the unfinished bridge to nowhere — they would applaud for such a law no matter what it was called.

But perhaps to make the bill more engaging to the masses, the Senate version of FOI was renamed People’s Ownership of Government Information or POGI by Gregorio Honasan. As chairman of the committee on public information and mass media, the re-electionist senator says he is confident that POGI will be passed when the Senate reconvenes this July.

Civil society organizations and media groups were disappointed and slighted at the omission of such a crucial bill. The serious advocates pointed out that the passage of the legislation is central to the Aquino administration’s core values of transparency, anti-corruption and good governance. So why the seeming lack of urgency?

In a statement issued by Atty. Nepo Malaluan, co-convener of the Right to Know, Right Now Coalition, he said, “The challenge to President Aquino’s program of Daang Matuwid is how to institutionalize and make it uniformly observed at all levels of government so that it becomes irreversible even beyond his term. Passing the FOI law now will strongly reinforce public confidence that the President is keeping true to his mandate of change.”

The principal author of FOI is Quezon province Representative and House Majority Leader Erin Tanada. The original Tanada bill was penned way back in 2003, blocked year after year by the GMA administration who needed transparency like a collapsed vertebrae.

Two years into the Aquino reign, it is still stuck at the House committee level. Even with the suggested inputs from Malacanang in place, the revised edition of Tanada’s FOI bill remains a worn-out glimmer in the author’s eye. But like a dog with a bone, Tanada remains determined to put the measure to a committee vote by August.

Who’s afraid of FOI? It’s complicated. Unlike the RH bill where staunch opposition is clearly if not divinely defined as the Church, Opus Dei and Catholic fundamentalists; with the FOI, no one wants to be seen as an obstruction to transparency, so they don’t oppose it openly. They make the appropriate sounds to feign espousal, all the time dragging their feet and planting obstacles to fan more debate and delay its passing.

A big apprehension is whether there is a need to insert a provision to safeguard against possible abuse by irresponsible vigilantes in media and citizens’ groups. The Right-to-Reply clause is a condition that Rep. Rodolfo Antonino stipulates. Apparently, he is troubled by the possibility of transactions being questioned by zealots who shoot-from-the-hip. He demands that officials be given equal space and time to explain or rationalize an issue-in-question.

Rep. Pedro Romualdo demands an even more time-consuming debate. He argues that the coverage of the FOI should include the private sector. The bill will automatically cover the companies that have contracts with the government since they act as the project supplier. But to require private businesses to publish and disclose all their transactions in a government website might provoke a Constitutional crisis. Unlike public servants, the corporate world is not answerable to the electorate.

Insisting on adding these clauses will doom the FOI to languish for another eternity in the Congress limbo. Or maybe that’s the whole point? One Congress insider said that the token gestures of supporting FOI were really just for “photo-ops.” He said no one really wanted media or the public nosing around all the contracts, budgets and SALNs of national and local government officials.

At the near end of the SONA, P-Noy reprised a query that his critics constantly badger him with: “Alam po niyo, sa simula pa lang mayroon nang mga kumukuwestiyon sa sinasabi nating, ‘Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.’ Hanggang ngayon mayroon pa rin pong mangilan-ngilang nagtatanong: nakakain ba ang mabuting pamamahala? Ang simpleng sagot, ‘Siyempre.’”

As early as now, anxieties have surfaced about how long this ray of hope, this burst of sunshine will last. Enemies of reform are just hibernating and waiting for this yellow season to pass. Tanada’s FOI bill is one effective way to expose corruption, guarantee transparency and foist good governance — no matter who sits in Malacañang after 2016. Can you eat FOI? Absolutely!

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