FOI for the Filipino people

It does not look like the Fifteenth Congress will be able to claim the honor of finally giving the Filipino people their Freedom of Information (FOI) law.

Putting together reports in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, one gathers that the House of Representatives had mustered a quorum for the first time (I presume, in 2013) on Monday, January 28. Those present discussed the bill and heard two speeches on the bill. But the co-author of the bill, Citizens’ Battle Against Corruption Representative Sherwin Tugna, did not get to read his prepared sponsorship speech as the session “was suspended abruptly at past 5 pm.” When Congress met again on Tuesday, January 29, the body discussed other things.

Principal author of and staunch advocate for the bill, Deputy Speaker Lorenzo Tañada III, was not quite ready to give up hope that the bill will become law before Congress ends this year.

But there are not too many sharing this hope.

For one thing, the bill has not become an issue for ordinary people. It remains mistakenly an issue that concerns primarily journalists and media practitioners. The advocacy for the bill has been led by groups of lawyers and press and human rights organizations. The dialogue or debates have been pursued by experts seeking alliance with like-minded members of Congress, most of whom are also lawyers. While Access to Information Network (ATIN) is made up of non-press NGOs, the most visible of these are lawyers and journalists. The campaign has become a sectoral cause, not something that benefits ordinary people, certainly, not the masses.

Congressional debate in the past has focused on the use of FOI for the press. And clearly, politicians would be wary of extending and expanding the capacity of a free press to inquire and to probe, to find evidence and proof which may prove damaging for their political fortunes. The political mindset is protective of confidentiality, secrecy, security, and defense. I am told that the military is an unfailing presence during scheduled hearings of the FOI.

So once again, Filipinos are missing the point.

I was asked by a friend if I believed in FOI, referring to the bill. I said, yes, but only because I think ordinary people will be empowered by such a law. I pointed out that FOI or Access to Information has become a universal gold standard for most democracies and that the Philippines has fallen behind even those who have become democracies much much later than the founding of our republic.

In this country, the press can and should be able to do its job well enough, even without a law. It makes it more difficult to follow the paper trail, but so much investigative journalism has been produced without such a law. I am not saying that it would not help and facilitate much needed investigative reporting, but the broad benefit of such a law for everyone else has been missing in the discussion of FOI. The passage of such a law would start a long process of education and culture of openness and transparency, with citizens becoming well-versed in the processes of government, in tracking documents through the bureaucratic maze, following the paper trail on policies, programs, and the purchases and transactions which waylay funds intended for public welfare and service.

Aruna Roy, social and political activist of India, formulated the campaign for FOI as a movement for the masses. The meetings of the movement for Right to Information in India were held in open fields and public squares, gathering farmers and peasants, urban workers, students, and housewives so they could learn how to use this freedom. These crowds grew into grassroots organizations which looked at the local government’s budgets to check the misuse of funds intended for development and infrastructure. Similarly, Indonesia’s FOI campaign popularized a “doctor” who prescribed ways and means by which citizens could apply the “medicine” of information for the “sickness” caused by government corruption festering in dark corners. In Thailand, the first celebrated case won by a petitioner for information involved a mother who wanted to know the grades of those admitted to a school, in order to check if indeed, the failure of her child to enter the school was based on nothing else but failure of merit. In this country, a Supreme Court decision responded to a petition by civil servants for information about their rights.

A law on FOI will make everyone truly citizens, men and women who will make use of the means and the access to information in the evaluation of elected officials. It will spark hopefully an education of the masses about the importance of information in public life, providing the substance that is so lacking in political affairs. It will eventually enshrine public service at the heart of public office.

Such public activism will also hopefully goad the press to become more vigilant and to become better at reporting really important matters.

But remember, the passage of a law is only the beginning. We still have to do so much to make it really work.