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If all truths are easy to understand once they are
discovered; the point is to discover them. —Galileo
Galilei (Italian astronomer and physicist, 1564-1642)
And you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you
free. –Book of John, Chapter 8, Verse 32
IF
there’s one thing glaringly absent from the President’s
legislative agenda now lodged with the
Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac),
it’s the absence of the proposed Freedom of Information
Act.
The
private sector, especially the foreign chambers of
commerce, have been clamoring for it, and yet their
pleas don’t seem to get across to Malacañang.
It’s a
shame because if there’s one reform initiative that
would really make a difference quickly in the life of
this country in the next three years without entailing
any financial cost, it would be such a law. We may call
it the “Freedom of Access to Information Act,” or to be
more ambitious, the “Transparency in Governance Act.”
Accordingly, the Ledac has divided the current
legislative agenda into three—economic progress;
educational reform and social equity; and peace and
order and the rule of law.
Economic
progress includes amendments to the Electric Power
Industry Reform Act to allow more access and
competition, creation of the Civil Aviation Authority,
the national appropriations bill, simplified net income
taxation, rationalization of fiscal incentives, and the
credit information system.
It also
includes the establishment of the Personal Equity and
Retirement Act, national tourism policy; amendments to
the Customs Brokers Law and the Japan-Philippines
Economic Partnership Agreement, a national strategy to
conserve resources and help arrest climate change,
renewable energy, Land Use Act, antitrust laws,
agricultural competitiveness enhancement fund, and the
promotion of IT entrepreneurial venture.
Under
educational reform and social equity are affordable and
quality medicine, long-term care for senior citizens,
establishment of a poll watchdog fund, stiffer penalties
for election violence, the use of farm lands as loan
collateral, the University of the Philippines charter,
reversal of the devolution of district hospitals, and
the review of three laws: the Comprehensive Agrarian
Reform Act, the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization
Act and the Agri-Agra Act.
Under
peace and order and the rule of law, the Ledac will work
on strengthening the witness protection program, the
creation of special courts for the speedy administration
of justice, the imposition of stiffer penalties for
political killings, and the imposition of the harshest
penalties for rogues in uniform.
These
are all laudable reform initiatives, but even if most of
these new pieces of legislation are passed under the new
Congress, they would never achieve anything substantial
unless these are done under complete transparency. And
this country, despite its pretensions to democracy and
openness, has never been a completely open society.
Major
government transactions, especially those done in the
name of “progress and economic development”—transactions
that always ended with extracting money from the general
public in terms of taxes, fees, levies and
sacrifices—have always been done with complete secrecy
up to the highest levels of power.
It’s
only during the time that the general public felt they
are being shafted did they start to suspect that some
“genius” up there must have sold the country’s soul to
the devil.
The
rogues’ gallery of failed or dubious projects keeps
growing: the Joc-joc Bolante fertilizer scam, the Naia
Terminal 3, and, lately, the multibillion national
broadband network (NBN) and cyber-education project (CEP).
These
are the latest examples, and we don’t seem to run out of
these mega scams. Why? The reason invariably points to a
complete lack of transparency in governance—thanks to
the lack of a formal mechanism by which citizens can
demand information from the government. We don’t have
clear mechanisms by which each citizen who will suffer
the consequences of bad deals being contracted in our
name could have complete access to contracts being
signed by some bureaucrats.
The
clearest example of this is the NBN and the CEP, where
the people’s clamor for transparency is being shrugged
off by the declaration that the multibillion projects
are “government-to-government transactions” and
therefore could never be questioned.
One
could easily know the real story behind these
controversial and questionable deals by looking at the
minutes of meetings of Neda’s Investment Coordinating
Agency, yet journalists and citizens could never have
access to these documents because government officials
invoke “executive privilege” as quickly as one can blink
an eye.
If we
want this country to move forward and join the rest of
the progressive world, we should let sunshine into all
government activities, policies, processes, meetings and
outputs. A comprehensive law on transparency in
governance can ensure that.
As in
the United States, the law should mandate making
accessible all vital government documents and records,
especially those related to infrastructure development
revenue collections, loans, procurement and
implementation of economic and social programs and
projects. It should prescribe simple rules for citizens
to access relevant information.
The law
should penalize government officials and bodies who
hinder access to all these information. By default, all
government records, transactions and activities should
be deemed public records or documents, which each
citizen should have access to, subject to very few
limitations on “national-security” grounds.
Each
citizen has an inherent right to information; hence, a
person filing requests for information doesn’t have to
specify the reason for his request. In the US,
government agencies are supposed to respond to these
requests within 15 days.
More
important, this law should mandate “open meetings” to
allow citizens to participate in important government
meetings, should they so desire.
Globally, about 70 countries and territories have
freedom of information legislations. These include
Australia,
Belgium, Canada, Denmark, the European Union, Hong Kong,
India and Thailand. At least 17 more countries,
including
Indonesia,
Jordan, Kenya and Sri Lanka, are in the process of
crafting their own.
The
Philippines should have its own freedom of information
legislation. It’s high time the government stops
treating people like mushrooms in the dark constantly
being fed horseshit. |
