Freedom of information. This is being pushed by the Makati Business Club as it called Tuesday on national candidates to give priority to the passage of the country’s FOI law.
Freedom of Information is a right enshrined in the Constitution and refers to the right of the people to information on matters of public concern which includes the public’s right to know the public officials’ and employees’ assets, liabilities, net worth, and financial and business interests.
According to MBC executive director Coco Alcuaz, the passage of the FOI would arm both the citizenry and the private sector, making the government more accountable moving forward.
“We believe in democracy and we believe you need an informed citizenry to make democracy work. We believe FOI is one of the rights and tools of an informed citizen,” he said in a virtual press conference.
Alcuaz noted the most recent development on the matter came last year when the House of Representatives committee on public information consolidated several measures which seek to boost the country’s FOI. This includes measures involving people’s right to information, the implementation of constitutional policies on public disclosure, ensuring public access to official records, and enabling the public’s constitutional right to access to information.
Should it be passed, the FOI bill would mandate offices under the Executive Branch to fully disclose official public records.
President Rodrigo Duterte, who completes his six-year term in June this year, signed an Executive Order for the FOI program in July 2016, but this did not cover legislature, judiciary, and local government units while encouraging them to observe the order.
“For the business sector, FOI is one of the tools that gives us more confidence to make decisions that create jobs,” Alcuaz said in the same conference, noting that the private sector accounts for most of the FOI requests in countries with the law.
“FOI would give the business sector confidence to know what there is to know about sectors or locations they want to invest in, whether this knowledge is what the government plans to do or agency data on the results of previous or current activities in that space,” he explained.
MBC has been in partnership with the Center for International Private Enterprise for such an initiative, which they said should be among the priority discussions in the campaigns leading up to the national elections in May.
The panelists in the conference included the Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition, which earlier urged national candidates to disclose their statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth and sign a waiver to grant public access to other relevant documents and records.