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Showing posts tagged FOI
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Text blast vs FOI (#FOI)
A DAY before the Freedom of Information Act was supposed to be taken up at the House of Representatives, Speaker Prospero Nograles told media that text messages and phone calls were being made to ensure that House members would attend Friday’s session for the ratification of the FOI bill.
“We are doing text brigades, we are calling them, we are reminding them to attend the last session all because we want the Freedom of Information to pass,” Nograles told reporters.
The night before, however, a different text message was received by journalists and FOI advocates. Reportedly forwarded by a lawmaker “sympathetic” to the FOI bill, it urged House members not to attend the session.
The message read in part: “In view of the possible adverse impact of the pending Freedom of Information bill on the performance of the basic tasks of the government and the reported big rally of leftist groups at the House of Rep. to coerce congressmen to support said controversial bill, you may wish to join the many congressmen of various political parties who have decided not to attend the last session of the House…”
By that day’s end, the bill was dead – an event foreseen by several lawmakers.
“Gagawin nilang lahat ng puwedeng gawin (They will do everything they can),” Citizens’ Battle Against Corruption (CIBAC) party-list Rep. Joel Villanueva told 12 other lawmakers who attended a June 2 caucus at a Quezon City restaurant to strategize on how to get the bill ratified.
According to Villanueva, it was possible that the House leadership would even “sacrifice” other measures that were already included in the Congress’s last-day agenda just so it could block the bill.
“Walang ipapasa kahit ano (No measure will be passed),” Villanueva told his colleagues.
His prediction came true A copy of the June 4 House agenda obtained by the PCIJ shows that eight other measures died alongside the FOI bill last Friday because of a supposed lack of quorum.
Among these were counterpart bills from the Senate awaiting adoption from the House: (1) S.B. 3206 or the Philippine Tax Academy authored by Sen. Panfilo Lacson; (2) S.B. 2020 or the Special Education Act of 2008 introduced by Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago; and (3) S.B. 3571 or the Anti-Racial and Religious Discrimination Act filed by senators Antonio Trillanes IV, Manuel Villar, Ma. Ana Consuelo ‘Jamby’ Madrigal, and Pilar Juliana ‘Pia’ Cayetano.
Another three bills needed concurrence from the House after these were amended by the Senate: (1) H.B. 7046 which proposes the conversion of the Quirino State College into a state university filed by Reps. Junie Cua, Cynthia Villar, Exequiel Javier, Jesus Crispin Remulla, Mariano Piamonte, and Cinchona Cruz-Gonzales; (2) H.B. 4361 or the proposed creation of the Bicol State College of Applied Sciences and Technology filed by Reps. Luis Villafuerte, Liza Maza, Luzviminda Ilagan, Ana Theresia Hontiveros, Danilo Ramon Fernandez, Florencio Garay, Guillermo Romarate Jr, Glenda Ecleo, Satur Ocampo, and Arnulfo Go and (3) House Bill 3675 which proposes the creation of the Balanga City National Technical Vocational High School filed by Reps. Cua, Albert Garcia, and Del de Guzman.
Two more measures, which like the FOI bill had bicameral conference committee reports, needed ratification from the House. These were the proposed act on prohibiting and penalizing the pilferage and theft and unauthorized use, interconnection or reception of any signal or service offered over a cable TV or cable Internet system under H.B. 1409 and S.B. 3530; and the proposed Philippine Immigration Act of 2009 under H.B. 6568 and S.B. 3404.
It was Camiguin Rep. Pedro Romualdo of the Lakas-Kampi-CMD party — who had once defended the First Couple in their August 2009 lavish $20,000-dinner at Le Cirque restraurant in New York — who questioned the quorum and raised the issue on retroactivity before Nograles banged the gavel and declared the session adjourned.
Based on the House secretariat’s count, only 128 lawmakers attended the June 4 session. But at least an hour before the attendance was checked, Villanueva said lawmakers at the plenary had already reached 137, which was more than enough to muster a quorum of 135.
At the June 2 lawmakers’ caucus, those in attendance had pointed to the matter of having a quorum as a vulnerable point. Observed Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino party: “The quorum is a parliamentary tool. It can be used to pass the bill or kill it.”
“I think that the leadership is already talking about this,” said Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante, chairman of the House Committee on Public Information and one of the lead authors of the FOI bill. “I feel that they will question the quorum.”
Abante, regional director of the administration party Lakas-Kampi-CMD, also said during the caucus that he felt that he was being left cluessless by Nograles. This was strangle, he added, because the Speaker, who is his party-mate, had never done so before.
“In the past kasi Nogi (Nograles) and Art (Majority Leader Arthur Defensor) would call me everytime there was a problem,” said Abante. “But I was kept blind on this (the FOI bill issue) now.” – PCIJ, June 2010
By Annie Ruth Sabangan
Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
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Advocates to Congress, P-Noy: Rush #FOI law, observe disclosure rule even now
THE 15th Congress must adopt, refile and pass with dispatch the version of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act that was aborted in the 14th Congress because of the feigned absence of a quorum on the last session day of the House of Representatives last June 4.
In a statement, the Right to Know Right Now! Coalition of over 160 civil society groups and leaders said, “the new senators and congressmen may do well not to repeat the processes so they can save valuable time and even more valuable taxpayers’ money.”
The Senate had ratified the bicameral conference committee report on the FOI but the House not only failed to act but even thwarted the bill’s passage.
Pending action on the bill in the 15th Congress„ the Coalition called on the government of President Benigno C. Aquino III to “translate its commitment to transparency into clear policies and concrete action” and promptly convey to Congress his unequivocal support for the immediate passage of the bill.
The Coalition said the President might consider enrolling his support for the FOI bill in his first State of the Nation Address on July 23, as well as through an appropriate message to Congress certifying the necessity of its immediate enactment.
Yet even without an FOI law, the Coalition said President Aquino and his appointees could on their own “promulgate and observe active disclosure policies in their decisions and transactions, notably appointments, contracts, executive agreements, borrowing, and spending.”
Additionally, the Coalition exhorted the new House of Representatives to “introduce amendments to its Rules and changes in its practice, to prevent a repeat of capricious acts by the leaders of the 14th Congress that undermine not only the due performance of its legislative duty but also the integrity of the institution.”
The House, the Coalition noted, “must stop the practice of dispensing with the roll call at the start of session to railroad measures without quorum.”
The Coalition stressed that “attendance in sessions, an important obligation to state and people by every member of Congress, can only be enforced if quorum is strictly observed before session can proceed.”
On session days when a quorum is not present amid urgent business matters on the agenda, the Coalition said, “Congress must exercise its right to compel the attendance of absent members. In terms of the determination of quorum, the Rules must be amended to provide an effective check on the Secretary General’s determination of the result of a roll call.”
“The Rules on the consideration of conference reports must be strengthened to give effect to its high privilege in the order of business, and avoid the arbitrary and unjust blocking of an important measure by the House leadership as happened in the FOI bill conference report,” the Coalition said.
Last June 4, the last session day of the 14th Congress, House Secretary General Marilyn B. Yap declared that only 128 members were present – or seven short of the 135 required to constitute a quorum – at the close of a roll call prompted by a quorum question from Lakas-Kampi ally of then Speaker Prospero Nograles.
A motion was made for the present members to compel the attendance of the absent members, as provided by Section 74 of the House Rules but Nograles simply scoffed at the motion.
After Nograles released the list of House members who were supposedly absent on June 4, at least nine congressmen later came forward and were established on video footage to have been actually present at the session hall during the roll call.
They include Representatives Neptali Gonzales II, Roilo Golez, Michael John “Jack” Duavit, Mujiv Hataman, Arthur Pingoy, Magtanggol Gunigundo, Jovito Palparan, Pablo P. Garcia, and Oscar Malapitan.
According to the Coalition, “by all accounts, the number of House members present at the June 4 session was more than the required number to constitute quorum and the Freedom of Information Act could have been ratified that same day.”
The Coalition vowed to continue its effort to establish “which House leaders and Secretariat personnel must be held accountable for the events of June 4.”
At the same time, the Coalition said, “we must also chart the immediate next steps to move the Freedom of Information Act forward” and in the relentless campaign to pass the FOI. “we call on the members of the 15th Congress, both from the Senate and the House, and the Executive, to commit themselves to support it,”
The first step, the Coalition said, is for members of the new Congress to adopt, refile and pass the version of the bill that had been approved by the 14th Congress’s bicameral conference committee . This version is “as progressive and as reasonable as a Freedom of Information Act could get.”
“It provides a standard and definite procedure for dealing with requests for information. It clearly defines a narrow list of exceptions, carefully balancing the public interest in broad disclosure with the public interest in keeping certain information secret. It secures for citizens concurrent remedies in cases of denial of access to information,” the Coalition said.
Moreover, “it provides implementing mechanics for the public disclosure of a list of important government transactions, without need of request from anyone. It provides criminal and administrative sanctions for violation of the right to information.”
Just as well, the bicameral conference committee version “introduces numerous mechanisms for the active promotion of openness in government. All these directly address the operational gaps that have made the Constitutional right to information and the state policy of full disclosure of government transactions involving public interest, extremely difficult to enforce in practice. “ – PCIJ, July 2010
