A Tale of the Real Test

Was PNoy’s public commitment to Freedom of Information for real or just another politician’s gimmick – to deceive and to rule? Does he realize that while he can yet fail in the Anti-Corruption drive even if he gets the FOI passed, he cannot succeed if he does not get it passed soon enough – like yesterday? Or would he still care?

 Two Score and Six Years Ago

PNOY from http://myskylanterns.wordpress.com

Way back when President Benigno S. Aquino III was only five years old, the first Freedom of Information Act was signed into law in another country, the USA. President Johnson on July 4, 1966 accompanied that signing with typical rhetorical flourish: “This legislation springs from one of our most essential principles. A democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the nation permits. No one should be able to pull curtains of secrecy around decisions which can be revealed without injury to the public interest.”

He could have quoted one of his earliest predecessors, and a founding father of his Republic, who said: “The diffusion of information and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration.” (Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural Address, 1801. ME 3:322)[1] 

Pres. LBJ(www.presidentprofiles.com)

President Lyndon B. Johnson did add in his time, “I signed this measure with a deep sense of pride that the United States is an open society in which the people’s right to know is cherished and guarded.” Most advanced democratic societies in the world passed their own version of the law right after that US first but almost half a century later the Philippines is still struggling to pass its own.

To be fair, however, this President’s mother got it right in her 1987 Philippine Constitution: “The right of the people to information on matters of public concern shall be recognized. 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.” (Article III – Bill of Rights, Sec.7)

“APBL” – “as may be provided by law” is still today’s struggle. Of course it is the Congress that must pass the law – but there is no denying the critical factor that Malacañang’s unequivocal support plays in getting landmark measures through. Today, the spokespersons of Malacanang (Presidential Palace) routinely say that they already endorsed an amended FOI bill to Congress in February this year, in defense of their hands-off position today.

Evardone

But who says – who feels – “hands off”? No less than House Committee Chairman Ben Evardone. In an interview in the television program Failon Ngayon, Evardone said: “I’m not stopping it personally. I’ve been wanting to push the bill out of my committee because I’m the one being criticized in the media. I was a former media practitioner. But of course I cannot decide on my own. Especially this issue is so sensitive, so controversial and not the President’s priority – it was not in the legislative agenda submitted to Congress, no mention during the SONA [State of the Nation Address], although the Speaker mentioned that it is supposed to be given priority.“

Evardone added: “And there is no party stand. Is there a party stand of the Liberal Party? There is none! If the Liberal Party has a party stand, no problem; for my part, I toe the line.”

Administration Leaders’ “Support” 

JPE

Hasn’t Senate President Enrile (not of the LP) made his stand clear? In his speech at the opening of the third regular session of the 15th Congress last July 23 Enrile said: “The benefits of transparency are mutually advantageous to civil society and government. The vigilance of our citizens becomes the standard (on) which our public leaders will be measured. Transparency parts the curtains of corruption and illegal practices. In turn, accountability, will refine decision-making, and make leadership and public institutions more responsive and efficient.”

For his part, much earlier, at a speech before the Makati Business Club – Management Association of the Philippines joint membership meeting on 19 November 2010, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte, Jr. emphasized that “the drive against corruption requires a comprehensive approach that includes enhancing law enforcement, increasing prosecutorial success, and establishing a culture of transparency in government.” He identified the FOI bill as the principal measure being pursued towards such ends.

More pointedly, and seemingly more urgently, LP stalwart and Budget and Management Secretary Florencio Abad, said when he submitted Malacañang’s endorsed version of the FOI bill to the House last February, that it is essential in the Aquino administration’s governance and anti-corruption plan: “President Aquino believes that we can curb corruption more successfully and strengthen public institutions if citizens are given greater access to official information. Moreover, freedom of information – limited only by a few legitimate areas of confidentiality – will empower the people to hold their leaders accountable and get actively involved in governance.”

Abad, as head of the Secretariat of the Cabinet Cluster on Good Governance and Anti-Corruption, transmitted the administration bill upon orders of President Benigno S. Aquino III.

“President Aquino believes that we can curb corruption more successfully and strengthen public institutions if citizens are given greater access to official information. Moreover, freedom of information—limited only by a few legitimate areas of confidentiality—will empower the people to hold their leaders accountable and get actively involved in governance,” he said.

Abad added that the President, no less, had approved the Good Governance and Anti-Corruption (GGAC) Plan for 2012 to 2016, even warning departments and agencies that they should firm-up their targets and delivery timelines.

The Budget Chief said that the GGAC Plan contains reforms and innovations that pursue greater transparency, accountability and citizen engagement in governance. The FOI Bill falls under the GGAC Plan’s Transparency Pillar, which contains initiatives to ensure the regular and accurate disclosure of, and greater public access to, government information.

“But the FOI Act alone will not improve access to information. Under the GGAC Plan, we are pursuing other initiatives to enable meaningful freedom of information, including technologies that will automate the processing and public disclosure of data, as well as clearer and faster mechanisms for public requests for documents,” he added.

Bayan Muna Skeptical

Teddy Casiño

Party List Bayan Muna Representative Teddy Casiño explained in an interview on “Banner Story” why President Benigno Aquino changed his stance on the Freedom of Information bill starting from day one of his administration.

The FOI bill, he said, was one of the campaign promises of Aquino but he never mentioned it in his first and second State of the Nation Addresses. Why? “Because that policy was only necessary and useful for Aquino the Candidate. For the Aquino the President-in-power, the policy would be quite harmful. People would get to know his real advisers and their real motives, get hold of smoking guns and like evidences.”

People would know the dynamic of decision-making regarding juicy contracts and privileges, as well as regarding the non-stop demonization of certain figures of his predecessor administration but including, too, how some of its stalwarts have remained so in the current dispensation. People would be able to follow the money a la Watergate. They would know the real story behind the p.r. stories. Indeed, with the people’s right to know, a guilty or careless President might find himself “a candidate for early retirement.”

In effect, Bayan Muna accused the administration of secretly undermining the passage of the bill. The President “is the lead conspirator in the fight against the FOI bill.’’

“That is totally incorrect,” said Edwin Lacierda as spokesman for Malacanang. “We are a government that practices transparency and our actions speak for themselves.’’

He also denied reports that Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. has been spearheading the lobby against the bill. Ochoa was the right-hand man of Belmonte when the latter was Mayor of Quezon City.

He admitted that the deliberations on the bill bogged down but this was due to Nueva Ecija Rep. Rodolfo Antonino’s concern regarding a right of reply provision. Bayan Muna said this was precisely what they meant by the Administration’s insincerity, throwing monkey wrenches at a bill that could already have been passed into law at this time. If they meant business, said Casino, why not pass the FOI first and let a Right of Reply law follow.

Lacierda

Lacierda merely retorted: “We already submitted our FOI version. So we are happy with our FOI version—the Malacañang version. As to the developments in the House, that’s another matter which we are not always aware of.” And on whether Malacañang was concerned that the bill had not moved past the committee level, Lacierda said they remained hopeful “it would pass out of the committee.’’ But he indicated that the passage of the 2013 national budget and the sin tax bill would be the administration’s priorities for now.

“Well, there are a number of bills that have to be passed first admittedly, which we have not denied: the budget, the sin tax. The budget is important. The sin tax bill will address the funding gap. The RH is another and the FOI. But, again, all these we leave with the legislature,’’ he said.

Would the President make a stronger endorsement of the measure then? Lacierda said: “We already made our position very clear. We have submitted our version.’’ They have done their job – which most clearly and quite certainly is hardly enough.

The WikiLeaks [2]

The WikiLeaks “Collateral Murder” video and other cables released a few years ago were the spark that started a global debate about freedom of information. For instance, they revealed a lot more about how war is waged and the dubious ethics of how the governments deal with whistleblowers than anyone could have imagined. It showed that unchecked the government can operate with near-total impunity, and that people like Bradley Manning can be made into pariahs simply because the information they expose might decrease public support for the war.

Bradley Manning
www.bradleymanning.org

People started asking: “Why has Bradley Manning been thrown in jail while not one of the people who killed those civilians been punished?”

Can you imagine the kind of information one may be able to get relative to the Visiting Forces Agreement, the Muslim Peace Pact, the dealings with ASEAN and China, the Coco Levy Funds issue, the Mining policies currently pursued, dealings with COMELEC regarding party list exclusion and inclusion, etc. etc. the list seems endless, just following the money.

Democracy assumes a well-informed population:[3] Democracy wants to create leaders, while preventing them from abusing power. It achieves this by giving the population the power to regulate their government. For a people to regulate their government effectively they must know what their government is doing; they must be well informed. The democratic style is a feedback loop, but this loop can be broken if the government has the power to control the information the population has access to.

 Indeed, if someone or a group had the ability to control the information you have access to, would this not give them the ability to manipulate your opinions by hiding some facts from you, by presenting you with lies and censoring anything that contradicted those lies? Sad to say, it is now standard practice for most governments to lie to their populations, so much so, that people now take that for granted as true, despite the fact that this undermines the very democratic principles, which justify the government’s existence in the first place.

Thus, if we sum it all up, the philosophy underlying any FOI Act may be captured in propositions like the following:

When government is more open to public scrutiny it becomes more accountable;

If people are adequately informed and have access to information, there is likely to be more public participation in the policy-making process and in government itself;

Groups and individuals who are affected by government decisions should know the criteria applied in making those decisions; and

Every individual has a right to: know what information is held in government records about her or him personally, subject to certain exemptions to protect essential public interests; inspect files held about or relating to her or him, and have inaccurate material concerning an individual held on file or in   computerized databases corrected.[4] 

The National Secretariat for Social Action – Justice and Peace (NASSA) Takes a Stand

NASSA, described as the social action and development arm of the CBCP, said the lack of access to information “systematically subjects our concerned sectors – farmers, fisher folks, indigenous peoples, workers and rural and urban poor, particularly the Basic Ecclesial communities – to become vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation by bad elements in the society.”[5]

In the NASSA statement, signed by National Director Bishop Broderick Pabillo, the group wondered why the FOI measure had not yet been passed despite 14 years of lobbying by civil society and media organizations.

“Our peoples’ right to information – access to the records, documents, papers of/on contracts, transactions, decisions, programs, data, regulations, and all other official acts of government – provides greater opportunity for peoples’ participation in good governance. It is a constitutional right of every Filipino to be informed of the governmental affairs to ensure healthy social environment for democratic peoples’ participation in the delivery of programs, projects and services of the government.

“Without access to information, these sectors as well as other sectors in the Philippine society gain no knowledge as to what government plans. They would be unaware of the projects and contracts the national and local governments make for them. Even now, although some of these communities and/ or sectors are consulted, their issues and concerns are not being heard. Our people then eventually tend to develop distrust in government institutions and activities,” a distrust hardly beneficial to the Philippine Garden. FINIS.