The Philippine Online Chronicles

The Freedom of Information (FOI) bill will not be among the priority bills the president will be presenting in today's Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) meeting, Malacañang said.

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said that President Benigno Aquino III has trimmed the original list of 23 priority bills because some need more study and details from cabinet members. However, Lacierda confirmed through a text message that the Reproductive Health Bill will be presented in today's LEDAC meeting.

“The FOI is being studied, we have certain concerns, valid concerns, which we are going to raise, which have been raised by the president himself, and it’s not dead in the water,” Lacierda said in a press briefing.

Lacierda noted that “this is not the last chance we've got prioritize the bill. We still have four years and nine months to go. There will be several LEDAC meetings.” The spokesperson also said the palace isdrafting its own FOI measure. The 14th Congress previously failed to ratify the 14-year old bill due to lack of quorum.

The bill seeks to give the public, including the media, the right to access government documents including compromise agreements, private sector participation agreements or contracts in infrastructure and development projects, procurement contracts of government agencies, construction or concession agreements, loans, and more.

Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) executive director Malou Mangahas earliersaid “President Aquino had promised in no uncertain terms that he will see to the passage of the FOI bill. Our hopes were dashed when the president failed to enroll the FOI bill among the top priority measures.”

A manifesto of the Bantay FOI! Sulong FOI! campaign included several reasons why FOI law is needed: “to provide uniform and definite procedures for dealing with requests for information; to clearly define exceptions; to secure for us effective remedies in cases of denial of access; to require the disclosure of important government transactions for violation of our right to information.”

Its author, Deputy Speaker Erin Tañada, previously stated that the House Public Information Committee targets to approve the bill by August this year, “before the regular session is over.”