Coalition demands to hear Aquino on freedom of info bill
President Benigno Aquino III. AP FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Supporters of the People’s Freedom of Information (FOI) bill on Friday said they want to hear President Benigno Aquino III’s endorsement of its passage into law in his fifth State of the Nation Address (Sona), even as they called the FOI the new DAP or “Disclosure Acceleration Program.”
The Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition, a multisectoral organization pushing for the bill’s passage, transmitted a letter to President Aquino together with 38,200 signatures gathered online and offline from people supporting the FOI bill.
The letter, addressed to President Aquino and House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte, was received by Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda.
The new meaning to the acronym DAP got Lacierda’s attention, tweeting it soon after a meeting on Friday at the Malacañang Museum.
In their letter to the President and Belmonte, the group said it welcomed the government’s initiative to release important information in the program Open Data/Open Government.
“However, it cannot be ignored that this program needs an enabling law that will breathe life into the right of the people to ask for information aside from those already published. The proposed Freedom of Information Act responds to this by making clear what are included and what are the exceptions in this right, outlining how to ask and give information and what administrative or criminal liabilities would be imposed if it is violated,” the group said in Filipino.
Long-drawn struggle
The group added that while there have been assurances that the FOI Act would be passed into law in the 16th Congress, it still faces several challenges.
The group asked the President and Belmonte to include the FOI Act in the priorities of the Executive and the House of Representatives and set a timetable for it.
In a separate letter to Lacierda, the group said “it has been a long-drawn struggle for the passage of the FOI Act, due in part to institutional reluctance to see it through.”
“Our experience in the advocacy tells us that for the FOI Act to become reality, it needs the support from all sides and the decisive leadership at the highest level is an important element of this,” the group added.
The Right to Know, Right Now! is a network of 160 media, civil society and lawyer groups.
The coalition initiated the online petition through the online platform Change.org on May 14. In the few hours that the petition was launched, it was already able to gather 16,235 signatures.
Nearly 22,000 Filipinos also signed the petition at the various onsite/offline signing booths nationwide organized by the coalition members.
The coalition said the online petitioners are Filipinos “from Angola to Angeles, from Malta to Malolos, from the Bahamas to Binondo…Papua New Guinea, Kazakhstan and the Middle East.”
“The FOI bill—when enacted—will give Filipinos the right to access public information on demand, cutting through the culture of secrecy that has smothered public access to information for decades,” the group said.
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