SCRATCH ONE DAY.
Advocates of the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill still pending in Congress walked out during the resumption of regular session in the House of Representatives after the lower chamber again failed to calendar the measure for floor debates.
House leaders said the measure will be taken up on the floor beginning tomorrow (Tuesday Jan. 22), leaving just eight remaining session days before Congress adjourns for the long election break.
FOI advocates have been demanding quick Congress action on the FOI beginning today, as there are only nine session days remaining before the chamber goes on extended break on Feb. 8. After that, the 15th Congress will only resume session for three days in June this year, during which time it wraps up sessions.
The measure’s principal author took the floor Monday afternoon to ask the House leadership if the FOI would finally be taken up on the floor. To this, Deputy Majority Leader Bolet Banal responded that the Committee on Rules had decided to calendar the measure the next day, Tuesday.
At this point, some 70 members of the Right to Know Right Now Coalition immediately stood up and walked out of the gallery, with some chanting “FOI, FOI, Ipasa!” (Pass the FOI!)
The FOI advocates continued to chant as they walked down to the lobby, even as congress security men tried to usher them out into the driveway. The demonstration continued in front of Congress as chanting FOI advocates spilled out into the driveway, to the surprise of some congressmen who were arriving late.
Right to Know Right Now lead convenor Nepomuceno Malaluan said the group is sorely disappointed that the Congress leadership is still dribbling the FOI despite the widespread calls for its passage. Malaluan said that if the House leadership was really interested in transparency and accountability, the measure would have been immediately calendared and rushed through the legislative mill.
Malaluan said that the bill could easily be passed in the remaining eight session days if only the House leadership would put its shoulders behind the measure. However, if Congress is really not bent on passing the bill, no number of days would be enough to see the bill through.
For his part, House Committee on Public Information chairman Ben Evardone said he had warned FOI proponents that there were still many contentious provisions in the measure that need to be discussed on the floor.
Evardone says he knows of several Congressmen who have personally told him of their concerns with the FOI measure. These Congressmen, Evardone said, are certain to block passage of the FOI until their concerns have been addressed.
These include Reps. Pedro Romualdo and Rodolfo Antonino. Romualdo had successfully blocked the ratification of an earlier version of the FOI bill during the 14th Congress by raising the issue of a quorum in the chamber. For his part, Antonino had tried to block the FOI’s approval in the committee level by insisting on the inclusion of a Right of Reply (ROR) provision, which would require media agencies to provide equal time or space to government officials who feel slighted by news stories about them.
At the same time, the Makabayan block of legislators allied with the party-list group Bayan Muna has withdrawn authorship of the FOI, saying that the measure now pending before Congress has been heavily watered down by Malacanang so as to make it ineffective and even anti-transparency.
Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casino said the seven-member block was withdrawing its support for the measure until the bill takes on a more acceptable form. Casino said that in its present form, the bill only serves to institutionalize exemptions that would allow government officials to block access to information.
In fact, the members of the Makabayan block said the Freedom of Information bill has now become the Freedom of Exemption bill because of the long list of exemptions granted to government officials. Among the points of concern raised by the Makabayan block are the provision for executive privilege, as well as the exemption that allows police and military officials to keep information confidential if they think it would interfere with the detection and suppression of criminal activity.