ADVOCATES of the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill marched to historic Mendiola bridge Monday afternoon to ask President Benigno S. Aquino III to save the measure from certain death in Congress.
Groups belonging to the Right to Know Right Now! Coalition converged on the bridge fronting Malacanang Palace to remind the President of his commitment to support the FOI bill, now wallowing in Congress because of lack of support from the House leadership.
FOI advocates say the bill is practically in the intensive care unit (ICU) and nearing death, as Congress prepares to go on an extended election campaign break on February 8 without even deliberating on the FOI.
As of Monday, there are only six session days left before Congress goes on break. The bill has already been approved on the committee level, but is yet to be calendared by the House leadership for sponsorship on the floor. Only after the measure is sponsored on the floor will debates and amendments start.
To deliver the point, FOI advocates laid a mock patient on a stretcher at the foot of the bridge, to symbolize the state of the measure.
Responding to the rally in Mendiola, Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda and Communications Undersecretary Manuel Quezon III invited five leaders from the coalition to Malacanang for a meeting. The meeting was still ongoing as of four in the afternoon Monday.
GROUPS pushing for the passage of the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill march to Mendiola Monday afternoon to ask President Benigno S. Aquino III to certify the bill as urgent and save it from yet another death in the House of Representatives.
The Right to Know Right Now! Coalition, a network of 150 media and civil society organizations committed to the passage of an FOI bill, says only President Aquino can still revive the measure at the last minute.
With only six session days to go before going on an extended election campaign recess on Feb. 8, members of the House of Representatives convene again to tackle matters they still deem to be important in the last days of the 15th Congress. For the last three session days, legislators deftly avoided bringing up the controversial FOI bill even as pro-FOI legislators pressed the House leadership to put the bill in the chamber’s order of business. House Committee on Public Information chairman Ben Evardone says that he has been ready to sponsor the measure on the house floor for the last three days, to no avail.
In the last two session days, Davao Sur Rep. Marc Douglas Cagas successfully blocked any discussion of the FOI when he threatened to question the existence of a quorum in the chamber. Cagas has been blocking the legislative mill in protest over a law signed by President Aquino creating the province of Davao Occidental.
FOI advocates are hoping that the President himself finally steps in to breath some life into the bill by certifying it urgent and urging House leaders to act on the measure. Malacanang has been largely lukewarm to the bill, even though President Aquino had indicated his support for the measure when he was still running for the Presidency.
The Right to Know Right Now! Coalition will assemble in front of the University of Sto. Tomas at two in the afternoon Jan. 28 in preparation for the march to Mendiola bridge in front of Malacanang Palace.
This is the sorry situation as of today of the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill.
The House of Representatives spent not even a minute to discuss the FOI during its three session days last week, even as the bill was on its order of business. Only six session days remain before Congress adjourns again on Feb. 8 for the May 2013 elections.
So what is President P-Noy to do?
One, he can zip it, stand idly by and do nothing as his party mates and allies in the House kill the bill for good. Or, he can choose to act, be the leader that he should, and certify to the urgency of the enactment of the bill.
In another pooled editorial published today, Jan. 28, newspaper-members of the Philippine Press Institute (PPI) spelled out these two options for the President.
The Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition, meanwhile, announced that its members will march to Mendiola near the presidential palace at 2 p.m. today, to demand that P-Noy issue a certification to save the bill.
The editorial recalled that in 2010 as a candidate for president, P-Noy had promised to support the FOI bill and accord its passage top priority. “Now President and also chairman of the ruling Liberal Party coalition in the House, he has both power and duty to fulfill his promise and to do his part to save a bill that will enable the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of the people to information, and to transparency and accountability in government,” it said.
Should he ignore the summon to action, the editorial said, P-Noy would have failed, too “a most important test of leadership. “If he should choose to stand idly by, when in fact he could have intervened to rescue the bill, by his inaction he will have also joined the ranks of his murderous allies,” it said.
Here is the full text of the pooled editorial:
FOI in ICU: A Call for Rescue by P-Noy
THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION (FOI) Bill is on the throes of death.
With just six session days left before the House of Representatives adjourns for the May 2013 election campaign, one and only one miracle could save it from certain perdition — a certification on the urgency of its immediate enactment by President Aquino himself.
It should not have reached the ICU, if only the House did something more than nothing on the FOI bill during its three session days last week.
On Session Day 1, the House did not even enroll the bill in its order of business, even as it had been in the Order of Business for reference to the Rules Committee on Dec. 18, 2012 yet. On Days 2 and 3, just when the Bill had already been calendared for sponsorship and plenary debate, a legislator threatened to question the quorum for a motion too parochial and self-serving, and kept the entire House hostage to his whim.
Yet still, the House leaders allowed three privilege speeches, and over an hour of interpellation for one, on Day 3. The legislator and the House leaders did not allow even a single minute of discussion on the FOI bill.
Last week’s events point to a House conspiracy to kill the bill led no less by Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II, and with the many habitual absentees of the House in cameo role.
After opening the session and immediately leaving the presiding chores to a Deputy Speaker on day 1, Belmonte was not to be seen again on the floor last week. The same goes for his Majority Leader, who showed up for just a few minutes on Day 3. That was as far as they went to demonstrate their leadership of a chamber turned totally inept to take action on the FOI bill by a legislator on tantrum mode.
In recent weeks, Belmonte and Gonzales had assured that they wanted the plenary debate on the FOI bill to proceed posthaste. For a minute, the broad coalition of FOI advocates and authors had thought the duo had stopped their dribble drivel on the bill.
Last week’s events, however, made it all plain to everyone: after the drivel comes now a plot to murder the bill in the House through sheer ineptitude and deliberate actions of its leaders, the chronic absenteeism of majority of its members, and the resort to absurd tantrum ploys of one legislator.
We smell the stench of death in progress for the FOI bill. We see a rerun of the farce on the FOI bill that was staged by the 14th Congress under Speaker Prospero Nograles Jr. It’s all the same save for one twist — Belmonte’s 15th seems more duplicitous. It declares full lip-service commitment for FOI but also employs full-throttle theatrics to prevent the bill’s passage.
That Belmonte’s House has failed the people on the FOI bill is an indisputable fact.
For one, the legislator in tantrum allowed other matters to be discussed by the House last Tuesday and Wednesday but it was only when the FOI bill was about to be taken up did he insisted on his quorum question.
For another, the all-powerful Rules Committee led by Gonzales is not exactly helpless to act on matters of agenda. It did not intervene for the FOI bill.
For a third, that the House could not achieve a quorum is not a problem that citizens should have to deal with — lawmakers are precisely paid handsome fees, on top of fat slabs of pork money, to legislate. Their minimum obligation is to attend all sessions, without fail. Belmonte and Gonzales have the command responsibility to see to this.
For a fourth, Belmonte and Gonzales could have declared the FOI bill urgent pursuant to Rule X, Section 52, of the House Rules, thereby paving the way for the adoption of a timetable for debate and voting on FOI.
Finally and most important of all, Belmonte and Gonzales could have prevented the deliberate delays on the consideration of the bill by Rep. Ben Evardone at the committee level, which got the FOI bill in its code blue condition in the first place.
Fact is, as Evardone hemmed and hawed, legislators in favor of the FOI bill launched an initiative to use Rule IX, Section 37, Par. 1 of the House Rules allowing 1/4 of the members of a committee to call a hearing.
But presented with the notice of hearing signed by more than the eight Committee members needed to put the rule in effect, Belmonte prevailed upon the group to allow Evardone to call the hearing instead, allowing Evardone to further delay committee action.
With three session days wasted and only six more to go, the last remaining trigger for the House to finally act on the bill is a certification from President Aquino on the urgency of its immediate enactment.
Three years ago as a candidate for president, Aquino had promised to support the FOI bill and accord its passage top priority. Now President and also chairman of the ruling Liberal Party coalition in the House, he has both power and duty to fulfill his promise and to do his part to save a bill that will enable the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of the people to information, and to transparency and accountability in government.
Failing in this, the President would have also failed a most important test of leadership. If he should choose to stand idly by, when in fact he could have intervened to rescue it, by his inaction he will have also joined the ranks of his murderous allies.
Today, the people will march again to Mendiola to lay at the doorstep of President Aquino the FOI bill, limp and nearly lifeless. Save it, the President can. Kill it, the President can, too. In the name of the Constitution, the people, and daang matuwid, the correct choice is clear: Certify the FOI bill as urgent!
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.
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.
