"Access to information should be a priority in ordinary and extraordinary times alike."
Several years ago, there was clamor for the passage of a freedom of information bill in Congress. The argument was that passing a law mandating government bodies to respond to inquiries from the public showed commitment to transparency and accountability in government.
That bill was never passed. FOI initiatives generated strong interest among the people—but feeble support among lawmakers, even those who claimed to be champions of transparency.
When President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016, he issued Executive Order 2, establishing FOI in the Executive branch of government. The EO also caused the creation of the FOI Project Management Office under the Presidential Communications Cooperation Office. Since its creation, the PMO has received countless requests for information among the public. It has responded to these requests, farmed out among concerned executive agencies, in varying degrees of success.
Mr. Duterte’s issuance of the EO could be seen in a number of ways. One, it could be taken to show his commitment to transparency if only in his own branch of government. The more skeptical could argue that it is a token order to keep up appearances of openness and accountability.
Legislated FOI, of course, will send a stronger message about commitment to openness. Because it becomes part of the law of the land, it would cover the entire government and not just one branch. Being an institutional move, it also will not be associated with the discretion or magnanimity of any one person—specifically, the President who issued the executive order.
There were at least 16 pending FOI bills in the last Congress, set to be reviewed by the House committee on public information. Unfortunately, not much action was taken on these bills. And then, without warning, until the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted all programs and plans, and sent everybody into emergency mode.
The ensuing public health crisis only highlighted the need for legislated access to information, and the inadequacy of the current order. According to the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, just one in 10 COVID-19-related requests filed in the FOI portal between March 13 and May 27, 2020 has been granted. Most of these were about COVID-19 spending and financial assistance.
But there are a lot more we wished we knew. While the government is releasing numbers by the day, we would like to know more, and go deeper. For instance, how accurate are the tallies, how do these relate to localized counts, and how reliable, really, are the daily and aggregate figures? Could we ever be privy to documents that tell stories better than official spokespersons ever could?
There have been pieces of legislation—for instance, the anti-terrorism bill—brought to our attention when they do not seem to be relevant to the current crisis we now face. No less than the President has articulated his support of this law by certifying it urgent. Certainly, institutionalizing access to information, not only for a certain branch of government, and empowering people to have a say in the government which they fund, should be a priority in ordinary and extraordinary times alike.