Let ‘sunshine in’ with FOI law–Grace Poe

Sen. Grace Poe: Kill the “germs”. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Exposing the government to the “sunshine of public scrutiny” would kill the “germs” that lead to corruption, Sen. Grace Poe said Tuesday as she pushed for the passage of the freedom of information (FOI) bill.

Poe, chair of the committee on public information, said the aim of the proposed FOI law was to apply the “sunshine principle” to government.

In essence, this principle means that “all things not exposed to sunlight acquire germs,” Poe said.

“Exposing the government to the sunshine of public scrutiny will kill the germs and disinfect the microbes that lead to waste and red tape, abuse of authority and gross misconduct, and graft and corruption,” she said in her sponsorship speech for the measure.

Poe said the passage of the bill—twice blocked in the House of Representatives—was long overdue because there was a “real, genuine public clamor” for it.

“I just find it quite unfortunate Mr. President that we had to wait for something like the recent misuse of funds issue to happen before this bill could garner bipartisan support in Congress,” she said, referring to the pork barrel scam involving senators and representatives.

It was sad, she said, “to see that we Filipinos seem to have developed a higher tolerance level for corruption compared to our neighbors in Asia, and that we always seem to wait for things to go from bad to worse before we are moved to action.”

This was not the case in other countries, she said.

Poe said that after Sweden passed an FOI law in 1766 granting its citizens access to official public documents—the very first country to do so—Finland, Norway and Denmark followed suit. Even Thailand has passed its version of the law.

So far, 94 countries have enacted such a law, while another 53 countries are on track to ratify similar legislation.

Poe said such a law has a direct correlation on the incidence of corruption in a state.

For instance, she said, the Scandinavian countries have consistently been rated as “least corrupt.” In the 2012 Corruption Perception Index of Transparency International, Finland and Denmark shared the No. 1 spot as the least corrupt countries, while Sweden ranked fourth and Norway, seventh, Poe said.

The Philippines currently ranks 105th least corrupt out of 174 countries.

Even so, a vast majority of countries with such a law have freedom of information “in name only, but not in spirit,” the senator said.

For it to be strong, the law must have a presumption of release, clearly defined exemptions, an independent implementing agency, efficiency and timeliness, and strict penalties for noncompliance, she said.