FOI, human rights bills must also be enacted

The Reproductive Health bill, approved by the 15th Congress this week after contentious debates, with President Aquino certifying it for urgent passage, was one of three key proposals that had been in the legislative pipeline for 12 years or longer.

The proposed Freedom of Information Act is one. The other, the Human Rights Victims Compensation bill, would give recognition and compensation to those whose rights were grievously violated during the Marcos dictatorship. Like the RH bill, each has been consolidated from and substituted for the various bills that were filed in the previous Congresses.

It is crucially important that the 15th Congress pass these bills before adjourning its last session in mid-February, and for P-Noy to sign them into law soon after. Not only because these have been pending passage much too long. It’s more because good governance (in the case of the FOI), and justice long denied (in the HRV bill), demand their urgent enactment.

Fact is, P-Noy did promise to have both legislations passed. And they can be passed within the remaining nine session days of the 15th Congress once he gives the final push, as he did with the RH bill.

  Despite the repeated promises, however, he has to show more zeal in pushing both measures.

P-Noy is surely aware that the FOI bill’s passage is a test of how far he will go on his commitment to full transparency in governance, in accordance with his avowed anti-corruption policy of “tuwid na daan (straight path).”

Basically the FOI bill seeks to realize in practice — as part of government policy — “the right of the people to information on matters of public concern” as provided by the Bill of Rights in the 1987 Constitution (Article II, Section 7). The provision says:

“Access to official records, and to documents, and papers pertaining to official acts, transactions, or decisions, as well as to government research data used as basis for policy development, shall be afforded the citizen, subject to such limitations as may be provided by law.”

The FOI bill, first filed in 1992, would allow limits to “full public disclosure on transactions involving public interest,” mainly on information involving national security and defense the disclosure of which may put the nation in danger.

However, the consolidated bill has accommodated Malacanang’s suggested exemptions to public disclosure. Among these are “official records of minutes and advice given and opinions expressed during decision-making or policy-formulation,” whenever the President invokes such information to be privileged because of sensitivity or because disclosure would impair the presidential deliberative process.

In the 15th (current) Congress, the House dawdled over the FOI bill at the committee level before presenting it for plenary deliberations in January (after the Christmas-New Year holiday break). This week, the Senate approved its own version on second and third reading.

Despite this positive development, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said the House leadership would let the bill go through second reading debates and amendments but would not ask P-Noy to certify it for urgent passage.

With the Human Rights Victims Compensation bill, there should be a lesser problem.

The House had earlier passed it on third reading. Last week the Senate did the same on its own version. What needs to be done is for the bicameral conference committee to meet in January and reconcile the differences between the two versions. Each chamber could then ratify the final bill and submit it to the President for signing.

As in the case of the FOI bill, an earnest effort is required of P-Noy in pushing the bill’s immediate passage.

His ambivalent attitude towards this measure was showing when he spoke about it in a press briefing last November 6 at the 9th Asia-Europe Meeting held in Vientiane, Laos.

According to the PhilSTAR report on that occasion, P-Noy told the press that he had assured Switzerland’s President Eveline Wilmer-Schlumpi —who had raised the issue in their bilateral talk — that he would ask Congress to expedite the bill’s approval to give justice to the human rights violations victims.

But he also made it clear to Wilmer-Schlumpi that “getting a compensation bill passed would be difficult because many members of the Marcos family are still in key positions in government.”

Moreover, P-Noy explained why he had not talked with his friend, Sen. Francis Escudero, chair of the committee on justice and human rights, that was then tackling the compensation measure. He said:

“I’m looking for the right time to talk to him. Let’s not forget that his father had worked for and had always believed in Mr. Marcos.”

Did P-Noy feel insecure he couldn’t get the HRV compensation bill passed because: 1) Marcos’ widow, Rep. Imelda, and their two children, Sen. Ferdinand Jr. (Bongbong) and Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos, would probably block its passage; and 2) Senator Escudero may not be able to act independently on the matter?

Since the Senate has passed the bill through Escudero’s sponsorship, P-Noy’s assumptions have been proven altogether wrong.

Now, will the President still hesitate to move to ensure the bill’s final approval and to sign it into law?

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