Monday, March 10, 2008 Amante: On the right to information By Isolde D. Amante
THE right to information in the Philippines first appeared in our Constitution 35 years ago, in the early days of Martial Law. Yet while such a right has been recognized in both the 1973 and 1987 Constitutions, the wave of reform that led many countries in the past decade to adopt freedom of information laws has yet to redefine Philippine shores.
Since 1998, various lawmakers’ drafts of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) have failed to emerge from the Philippine Congress as an enforceable law. In the past decade alone, at least five other countries in Asia have enacted FOIA legislation: Thailand (1997), South Korea (1998), Japan (1999), India (2002) and Pakistan (2002).
The lack of such a law has not kept Filipinos, for the most part, from gaining access to public information. Thanks to a Supreme Court that has interpreted the law in favor of free expression and informed debate, the contours of the right to information have slowly taken shape. It’s because of the Court that information on all laws, the civil service eligibility of government workers, and the terms of any proposed settlement relating to the allegedly ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses—to cite a small part of a long list—are considered matters of public concern, where access to information is guaranteed.
In April 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that the executive branch could not escape congressional requests for information without asserting its right to do so and its reasons. The Court declared void two sections of Executive Order (EO) 464, in which President Arroyo, invoking the separation of powers and the rule on executive privilege, had ordered public officials to gain her consent before appearing in a congressional inquiry.
Last week, President Arroyo revoked EO 464. But as concessions go, it is too little, too late. It strips her advisers and secretaries of an excuse to skip congressional investigations, but it doesn’t guarantee they’ll reveal anything anyway.
For this protected stonewalling, Congress shares part of the blame. You see, even as it failed to pass a law that would define the right to information more clearly, Congress has succeeded in enacting laws that spell out the right’s limits.
Among these is Republic Act 6713, or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees. Its implementing rules state that citizens can be denied access if: “the information, record or document must be kept secret in the interest of national defense or security or the conduct of foreign affairs; disclosure of the information will endanger the life and safety of an individual; and the information, record or document falls within the concepts of established privilege or recognized exceptions provided by law, settled by policy or jurisprudence.” Four other conditions exist.
Why Congress has failed to enact FOIA legislation is worth examining. One possibility is the lack of incentive for government transparency. In a Congress dominated by the elite, reform-oriented provisions in the Constitution may not get legislated because these do not complement lawmakers’ political or business interests. (Case in point: the constitutional prohibition on political dynasties.) In a sense, then, gaps in access to information may simply reflect larger disparities in the socioeconomic and political pecking order. In information, as with wealth and political influence, the gap between the haves and have-nots runs deep and wide.
(isolde.amante@gmail.com and http://peryodistang-pinay.blogspot.com)
