WHY is it that President Aquino and our legislators seem to be afraid of the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill?
The FOI bill seeks to enable the public’s constitutional right to government information on matters of civic concern, including state contracts. It mandates all state offices to make available for public scrutiny all information regarding official acts, transactions and decisions, as well as statistics used for policy development.
When he was still campaigning, President Aquino vowed to support the passage of the FOI bill but what happened to that promise now that he is President?
“Freedom of Information Act sounds so good and noble but at the same time, first of all, you’ll notice that here in this country there’s a tendency to get information and not really utilize it for the proper purposes,” the President remarked during an open forum at a gathering of Southeast Asian business leaders in September.
Not surprisingly, many legislators are toeing the President’s stand.
“What makes the Freedom of Information bill controversial and difficult to shepherd is the danger that it can be abused. While freedom of information is guaranteed by the Constitution, by no stretch of the imagination should it be considered absolute. All civil liberties and rights enshrined in the Constitution have limitations,” said House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales of the Liberal Party.
The fear that a freedom of information law could be prone to abuse and would endanger national security is unfounded and even speculative. It is a convenient excuse to keep the public in the dark about what the government is doing.
There are already enough safeguards in the FOI bill against possible abuse. National security is a broad enough category that already protects the state, particularly the military and law-enforcement agencies, from having to divulge sensitive information.
Information that would be exempt from the measure’s coverage include those declared by the President as classified, compiled for internal or external defense and law enforcement, information obtained by Congress in executive session, medical and personnel records that may invade privacy, and those pertaining to current treaty negotiations, among others.
We are also told that Congress has to make sure first that there are “enough safeguards” to ensure that the FOI bill “would not be used for mischief against other persons.”
However, there is already a libel law in the Revised Penal Code as well as other laws that seek to protect the reputation of individuals from unreasonable and unwarranted intrusions.
So what is the government really afraid of? That it would be rendered ineffective by the disclosure of corruption, malfeasance and incompetence within its ranks? That it would lose the trust and respect of the people by making them aware of the follies and foibles of their leaders?
On the contrary, we believe that disclosure of bureaucratic corruption would strengthen rather than weaken government institutions. We believe that people are more likely to trust and respect the government if the weaknesses and shortcomings of their leaders are brought to light for the sake of transparency.
Public office is a public trust. As government officials are paid with taxpayer’s money, they must be fully accountable to the public they are sworn to serve.
The non-passage of the FOI bill can only mean that it would be business as usual in government, that all the corruption, malfeasance and incompetence among government officials would be kept safe from public knowledge.
This is so not in accordance with pursuing the straight and narrow path that supposedly characterizes the Aquino administration.
Or was the President just shooting his mouth off when he was talking about transparent and accountable governance?
