Category: Access to Information

FOI loses Day 3 to Cagas’ ‘tantrum’

Ed Lingao Leave a comment

“Only a miracle can save the FOI now.”

So said champions of the long-delayed Freedom of Information (FOI) bill as the House of Representatives again failed on Wednesday to tackle the measure on the floor.

Legislators supporting the FOI have been waiting for three days for a chance to sponsor the bill on the floor, as the House calendar counts down to the election recess. The chamber adjourns on February 8 for an extended election break, leaving only six more days for FOI proponents to make a fast break.

Cagas - where are the warm bodies

However, Wednesday’s session went down the drain as well after the House leadership failed to mollify Davao del Sur Rep Marc Douglas Cagas IV. Cagas has been threatening to raise the absence of a quorum since Tuesday in order to block the sending of a newly signed law creating the province of Davao Occidental to the House archives. Douglas, one of the original proponents of the law, has now become its oppositor.

Unfortunately, the FOI bill has become an indirect victim of Cagas’ crusade against the Davao Occidental law. Tuesday’s session was also aborted by Cagas’ threats to question the lack of quorum.

Cagas and Gonzalez confer

An hour into Wednesday’s session, Cagas took to the floor to raise a question as to “whether there were enough warm bodies” in the chamber. House leaders took this to mean that Cagas was again threatening to raise the lack of quorum in the chamber, as there were less than 50 Congressmen present. Majority Floor leader Neptali Gonzales II rushed to talk to Cagas as the session was suspended.

When session resumed, Cagas appeared to have been mollified at first. Cagas again took the floor, saying he had already conferred with the Majority Floor Leader, and that they had come to an agreement. Cagas however again gave broad hints that there was no quorum in the chamber.

“After conferring with the Majority Leader, although his body is not that warm to warm all of us here, I agree with his (suggestion.)” Cagas said.

However, after a few more speeches by legislators on local concerns, FOI advocates watching from the gallery were surprised when the session was adjourned until Monday the following week.

Rep. Teddy Baguilat and Walden Bello, both champions of the FOI, said Cagas had refused to back down. In his discussion with Gonzalez, Cagas only agreed to allow local concerns to be taken up by the chamber. However, the legislator threatened to question the lack of quorum if any other measure was taken up by Congress during the session, including the FOI.

House Committee on Public Information chairman Ben Evardone, who was set to deliver the sponsorship speech for the FOI bill, said Cagas was apparently offended by media reports that blamed him for the failure of the chamber to tackle the FOI the day before. Media had quoted pro-FOI legislators as saying on Tuesday that they were blindsided by Cagas’ “parochial” concerns.

In addition, the Cagas patriarch, Davao Sur Governor Douglas Cagas, had himself attended the session to make sure that his son blocks any move to bring the Davao Occidental law to the congressional archive.

Curiously, Baguilat said, Cagas told FOI proponents that they could begin discussion of the measure on Monday, Jan. 28, as he would not be attending the session on that day.

Baguilat and Bello were stumped by this turn of events, as both were already expecting a tight race for the FOI when Congress resumed session last Jan. 22. With the new developments and the three day delay, Baguilat said only a miracle would save the FOI in the 15th Congress.

Barring a miracle, the only other thing that could save the FOI, Baguilat said, would be a certification from Malacanang that the FOI is an urgent measure. However, given the lukewarm support of the Palace to the measure, Baguilat said that a Presidential endorsement would also be a miraculous event in itself.

No quorum

Bello for his part said it was also unfortunate that Congress could not muster a quorum for the last two days, leaving the chamber hostage to Cagas’ threats. If all the Congressmen had only attended the session as they were supposed to, Bello said, Cagas would not have any ammunition with which to block measures on the floor.

There were less than 30 Congressmen present on the floor when the session began at 4 p.m. Wednesday. By the time the session adjourned at around 6 p.m. there were less than 50 present.

Interestingly, opponents of the FOI had earlier delayed the bill at the committee level by insisting that the committee stop hearings on the bill at 4 p.m. sharp because of a rule that requires all Congressmen to attend sessions.

Right to Know Right Now! lead convenor Nepomuceno Malaluan said the FOI advocates were extremely disappointed with the unnecessary delays in the passage of the bill. Malaluan said that advocates were hoping to the last minute that Congress would deliver on its promise to pass the measure before going on a break. With the delayed timetable, Malaluan said proponents were now preparing for the eventuality of another campaign, this time with the 16th Congress in mind.

Malaluan also expressed disappointment with the failure of President Benigno S. Aquino III to make a firmer stand on the FOI despite his earlier assurances of support for the bill.

PH budget transparency score slips 7 pts; oversight improves

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OUR latest report looks at the the results of a global survey on the state of budget transparency and accountability, with special focus on the Philippines.

Tomorrow, 24 Jan. 2013, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) will release the Philippine Report of the Open Budget Survey (OBS) 2012.

The OBS is produced every two years by the U.S.-based International Budget Partnership (IBP), in collaboration with research and civil-society groups across the world. The PCIJ has served as country researcher for the Philippines since 2006.

In the 2012 Survey, the Philippines’ score in the Open Budget Index (OBI) dropped to 48 or seven points down from 55 (out of the possible 100) in 2010.

On the upside, the Aquino government has indeed followed through with transparency reforms specific to how public funds are being managed. The downside: These have been proved wanting as a global report now reveals that Filipinos continue to be denied full access to budget information and documents.

The latest figure is a throwback to the Philippines’ score in 2008: exactly 48. This only means that the Aquino government, just like the Arroyo administration, has made it harder for citizens to get information on how public officials and agencies are spending taxpayers’ money.

A score of 48 remains above the global average of 43 and the average of 39 in the East Asia and Pacific region. But 48 is still not good news: It has dragged the Philippines into the roster of 77 countries – out of the 100 countries surveyed that are home to half the world’s population – that fail to meet basic standards of budget transparency.

Despite the Philippines’ low score, however, the OBS cites some improvement and promising practices in the country in terms of budget oversight and citizen engagement.

IBP also notes that with a score of 48 out of 100, the Philippine government has the potential to greatly expand transparency by introducing a number of short-term and medium-term measures, some of which can be achieved at almost no cost on public coffers.

House foils FOI again for lack of quorum, ‘parochial’ motion

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THUMBS DOWN DAY 2

Scratch two days; seven session days to go.

The House of Representatives on Tuesday failed again to tackle the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill despite assurances given by Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. to the bill’s authors that their sponsorship speeches will be allowed that day.

The FOI bill was on the official business of the House, and the sponsorship speeches of six lawmaker-authors had been lined up for the day.

That was supposedly until Davao del Sur Rep. Marc Douglas Cagas IV threatened to question the lack of quorum, if his motion was not heard.

Cagas, a two-term congressman who is running for governor of his province, had asked the House to stop sending to the congressional archive a law that President Aquino had signed creating the new province of Davao Occidental. The new province was formed with five towns carved out of Davao del Sur.

The FOI bill’s authors said they were completely surprised by Cagas’s motion.

“It was like an asteroid that fell from nowhere and hit us,” said Akbayan Party-list Rep. Walden Bello.

Ifugao Rep. Teddy Baguilat said Cagas’s motion was totally “out of the radar” of the FOI bill’s authors.

But the FOI advocates were the most disappointed. When the session was suspended without any explanations given by the majority, about a hundred members of the Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition rose from their seats in the gallery and altogether made the thumbs-down sign for all the lawmakers to see. In silence for about five minutes, the Coalition members stood at the gallery flashing the thumbs-down sign at the lawmakers.

Rep. Cagas’s father Douglas is the incumbent governor of Davao del Sur. The young Cagas, a minority lawmaker affiliated with the Nacionalista Party, is running against his clan’s long-time rival Claude Bautista. The elder Cagas, meanwhile, is running for mayor of Digos City against re-electionist mayor Joseph Peñas. The Commission on Elections has declared Davao del Sur as an “area of concern.”

Rep.Cagas was one of 117 House members who signed in July 2012 a statement of commitment to pass the FOI bill, on initiative of Rep. Bello.

It was only last week, on Jan. 14, 2013, when President Aquino signed into law Republic Act No. 10360 creating the province of Davao Occidental. The law’s signing was reported in the newspapers only this Tuesday.

But according to Rappler’s Miriam Grace Go, the bill’s proponents had initially asked that the law be submitted to a plebiscite in time for the May 2013 elections, but the Senate approved the bill only in October 2012.

The law that Aquino signed provides for a plebiscite to be conducted by the Comelec within 60 days from the effectivity of Davao Occidental’s charter, “or within two months from Feb. 5.” That date would fall right smack in the middle of the campaign period for the May 2013 elections.

The law provides, too, that “the first set of officials of the Province of Davao Occidental will be elected in the next national and local elections following the effectivity of this Charter,” Rappler reported.

Yet because the election period has commenced, the Comelec had decided to postpone the plebiscite for Davao Occidental and the election of a representative for the newly created congressional district of Cabanatuan City, to after May 2013.

Deputy Majority Leader Bolet Banal said that the House leaders have had to suspend Tuesday’s session at 5:20 p.m. because there was indeed no quorum at the House. The chamber thus failed to tackle the FOI bill even as he showed the day’s order of business with a list of six lawmakers scheduled to deliver sponsorship speeches.

Banal said he and his colleagues had counted at most 114 lawmakers present at the session hall and at the lawmakers’ lounge, or 30 short of the 144 required to achieve a quorum in the 287-member chamber.

Deputy Speaker Lorenzo Tanada III said he and the other FOI bill authors tried to convince Cagas to drop his quorum call but Cagas would not budge. In fact, according to Tanada, Cagas had sad he would question the lack of a quorum again on Wednesday, if the House will not give in to his motion.

According to Tanada, the only way to get the FOI bill sponsored and tackled in plenary is to have a quorum on Wednesday.

Baguilat said it is, in fact, the obligation of all House members to attend all session days, and that perhaps Speaker Belmonte should now “authorize” or compel all House members to attend the next session days.

Interviewed by reporters, Tanada called Cagas’s concern “parochial.” Another lawmaker lamented Cagas’s quorum call ploy to push his motion on Davao Occidental a case of “a congressman holding the FOI hostage to a personal, political concern.”

But by all indications, Cagas’s problem – now also a problem for the FOI bill – may be less parochial than it is political. By all indications, too, it is bad politics with bad timing, courtesy no less of President Aquino, who signed the law creating Davao Occidental just as the election period had already started.

Meanwhile, Aquino has chosen to ignore calls for him to certify to the urgency of the FOI bill. He flies to Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday to attend the World Economic Forum saying zilch and doing nothing as yet to move the FOI bill into law in the last nine — now seven — session days before the 15th Congress adjourns on Feb. 8 for the May 2013 elections.

FOI advocates still hopeful as Congress resumes session

Ed Lingao Leave a comment

PROPONENTS OF THE Freedom of Information (FOI) bill are still hoping for a fastbreak for the long-delayed measure as Congress resumed session with only eight days to go before the chamber goes on an extended election break.

Deputy Speaker Erin Tanada, one of the principal authors of the bill, said Speaker Feliciano Belmonte had not expressed any apprehension or opposition over the measure in a meeting prior to the session. Tanada said the Speaker said the FOI’s fate would now depend on whether the bill’s proponents could muster a quorum when the bill comes to a vote. Tanada takes this to mean that the Speaker is in support of the measure that has remained stuck in Congress for the last 14 years.

In fact, Tanada said he is hoping that the measure could be passed on second reading by next week, with barely enough time for a third and final reading before Feb. 8, when Congress goes on extended break.

The Senate had passed its version of the FOI on third and final reading last year.

The House Rules Committee had committed to have the measure brought before the floor today through a sponsorship speech by House Public Information chairman Ben Evardone.

Rep. Walden Bello of the Akbayan Party-List says FOI proponents are confident that the measure has enough support on the floor. Bello pointed out that 117 legislators had signed a statement of support for the FOI late last year, when the measure was still stuck at the committee level. Bello says they are confident that the bill would still have the support of these same Congressmen.

However, Bello acknowledged that their cautious optimism is premised on the idea that no one tries to delay proceedings on the House floor through procedures or technicalities. With only eight days to go before the break, FOI advocates have been counting the days with a mixture of dread and realistic optimism.

Tanada said there are a few more potentially contentious issues that would likely be discussed and debated on in the session floor. These include the Right of Reply provision; provisions on exemptions due to national security concerns, executive privilege, and a proposal to include the private sector in the FOI.

Want to speak up for FOI? See you at the House today

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LOVE your country and love the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill?

If you do, perhaps you may want to attend the plenary session at 4 p.m. today, Tuesday, of the House of Representatives, Old Batasang Pambansa Complex in Diliman, Quezon City.

Barring further delaying ploys by some lawmakers, the FOI bill is scheduled to be discussed at the House today, starting with a sponsorship speech by Committee on Public Information chairman Rep. Ben Evardone, and hopefully thereafter, quickly, plenary debate may ensue.

Meanwhile, the ranks of FOI advocates continued to grow, with more civil society organizations and leaders speaking up for the immediate passage of the bill in the 15th Congress.

The following organizations have added their voices to the clamor for the FOI bill to pass into law in the last eight session days until Feb.8, when Congress adjourns again for the May 2013 elections.

* Speaking for the Action for Economic Reforms, a lead civil society group in the successful campaign for the sin tax reform, senior economist Jo-Ann Latuja called on Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. to “facilitate the passage of FOI in the same way that he instructed Congress to overwhelmingly approve the Abaya sin tax bill in Congress.” The FOI bill, she said, will “help the effective enforcement of the sin tax bill.”

* Dr. Sylvia Estrada Claudio of Likhaan, a lead civil society group that helped in the passage of the reproductive health (RH) law, said that access to information by having the law on FOI is also crucial for the implementation of the RH law.

“The RH law is about giving the people, especially the women, a choice. People can make correct choices or will be aware of the consequences of their choices if information is made available to them,” she said.

According to Claudio, the FOI bill “promotes a culture of openness or transparency in the bureaucracy, which in turn, will benefit citizens who wish to get information and education related to RH from the government.”

* Ms Cielo Magno, executive director of Bantay Kita, a national civil society coalition made up of more than 80 organizations that monitor revenues in the extractive industries and which is represented in the multi-stakeholder group for the Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), said that a law on freedom of information is “a necessary component of EITI, and it is the key to the EITI’s success.”

The EITI international community, she said, will laud a law on access to information, which “will complement EITI.”

Earlier, many other major civil society groups have issued separate statements exhorting Belmonte and House leaders to assure quick passage of the FOI bill in the 15th Congress.

They include the FOI Youth Initiative of 68 student councils and youth organizations; a group of professors, deans, and a university president from various colleges and universities; the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ social action arm NASSA-JP; the Makati Business Club through its executive director Peter Angelo V. Perfecto; a group of 10 Netizens and bloggers; the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines; the Kapisanan ng mga Brokaster sa Pilipinas; and the Philippine Press Institute.