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10 JUNE 2010. On 4 June 2010 , the 14 th Congress had concluded all its legislative agenda with its final adjournment before the entry of the 15 th Congress. In human rights and public interest circles, the final day of legislative work under the leadership of Speaker Prospero Nograles was a very significant, last heave to finalize and pass into law, over and above all pending pieces of legislation, the Freedom of Information Bill of 2009 (FOI Bill).
Despite the particular importance and public scrutiny paid to the fate of the FOI Bill, Friday's session ended on the most unceremonious of finales – the FOI Bill met its death on the ground of lack of quorum.
“The significance of the Freedom of Information Bill isn't only found in some abstract and hypothetical future scenario of governmental transparency,” CHR Chairperson Leila De Lima said. “It is significant because of very real, concrete and compelling past events during the Arroyo administration.”
De Lima continued, “If the failed ZTE broadband deal had captured the imagination and incited public indignation, opened the minds of the most pedestrian of citizens to the most poignant examples of fetid corruption, and the indispensable right of the public to access information about their representative government – then the failure of this government to pass the FOI Bill should invite the same public indignation. All of this is just a continuation, deliberate or accidental, of a policy of corruption.”
Asked if it is significant, considering that the FOI Bill can be resurrected and passed in the next Congress, De Lima responded, “Whether the FOI Bill will be passed is not a question of if, but when. We fully expect that the FOI Bill will pass into law.”
“That being said,” De Lima continued, “The answer to when gives you the answer of who, or to whom. The failure of the the FOI Bill smacks of whose lack of commitment? The current administration.”
“We are aware of the many pieces of social legislation that the Arroyo administration had passed, strengthening human rights statute in this jurisdiction,” De Lima mused. “But numbers are relative, and reputations are often tarnished by the timing of even one false move, one failure. And this administration disappoints tremendously with its nonchalance in burying the FOI Bill.”
In response to the question on whether this single setback in legislation had been blown out of proportion, De Lima said, “Again, it is not a matter of numbers. Corruption, however, had been a very important theme in the last 9 years. Corruption is abetted by secrecy, opacity, and suppression of information. The ZTE Deal, Hello Garci, Fertilizer Scam, North Rail, C-5 and so many other sensational cases all substantiate this theme.”
“In a system of governance which allows the establishment an allowance to self-correct and to rectify,” De Lima contunued, “ I have to say that the FOI Bill would have been the most trite and obvious solution to rampant corruption. And despite that, Congress snuffed it out by a show, not of votes, but by mere implication, by procedure, wrought by those in absentia. It failed because of truancy!”
On the actuations of the administration and Congress to pass the FOI Bill over the past few weeks prior to adjournment, De Lima commented, “They are right. The internment of the FOI Bill is water under the bridge. And so is their unrescuable reputation. We've been disappointed before by delays in other HR statutes, such as the utter failure to pass, at the Senate level, the proposed CHR Charter. But the fate of the FOI Bill, on perhaps the most important day of legislative work for the 14 th Congress – it is unacceptable. If there was any genuineness behind all the rhetoric, if there was even a semblance of earnest will and effort, then there would have been a way [to pass the FOI Bill].”
On the possible solutions to pass the FOI Bill despite the adjournment of Congress, De Lima said, “Possible solutions may or may not materialize. But none of them would have been necessary. It was almost a given that the FOI Bill would have been passed. We are all disappointed already. Taking up the cudgels against corruption and human rights continues whether or not anyone is able to salvage the FOI Bill before June 30.”