What’s Malacañang’s problem with FOI bill?
A FREEDOM of information (FOI) act apparently isn’t one of Malacañang’s priorities and the new chair of the Senate committee on public information wants to know why by holding “heart-to-heart discussions” with officials of the administration.
Sen. Grace Poe said passing an FOI law was one of her priorities as chair of the information committee despite President Aquino’s apparent lack of interest in the measure.
“I really want to conduct hearings on this [bill]. This is the backbone of public information,” said Poe at yesterday’s weekly Senate news forum.
Poe on Wednesday filed a resolution call- ing on the appropriate committees to deliberate on the transparency measure in aid of legislation.
At least six bills mandating an FOI law have been filed in the Senate, including a direct initiative submitted by the Right to Know Right Now Coalition.
“I don’t think there will be much discussion but the cause that I would like to give attention to obviously is the side of Malacañang because there is no denying that it is not their priority measure and they have some reservations, and they filed their own version,” said Poe.
The FOI bill was passed by the Senate twice in the last two Congresses. Only the House of Representatives had stood in the way of the measure becoming an enrolled bill.
Despite being a campaign promise of President Aquino’s in 2010 and even after Malacañang drafted its version of the bill, the measure languished in the committee on public information and barely made it to the House plenary in the 15th Congress.
Poe said she wanted to know what Malacañang’s reservations were, “because the executive is a significant part of this whole process and the people had given President PNoy an overwhelming mandate.”
“We really also have to take into consideration what the President thinks about it, there are other points to pon- der here,” she added.
“Obviously, it’s not their passion but they’re also not doing anything to kill the bill,” she noted.
Poe said it was important to have an FOI law in order to institutionalize public access to government information, before the Aquino administration bows out in 2016.