By Sammy F. Martin
MANILA, March 4 (PNA) — The controversial Freedom of Information (FOI) bill will be tossed to the plenary after the House committee on Appropriations approved on Wednesday the bill’s budgetary requirements.
“We are happy with the decision of the Appropriations Committee to approve the appropriations provision of the bill, consequently, approving the FOI budget,” Akbayan Party-list Rep. Bary Gutierrez said.
He said the budget was one of the crucial components of the bill as it determined if the bill could be successfully implemented.
“Without it, our efforts to pass the bill to ensure government transparency and practice of governance will simply end up as a shot in the dark,” he said.
Section 30 of the proposed FOI Act of 2013, provides that the appropriations should be “the amount necessary to carry out the provisions of [the] Act [and] shall be charged against the agencies’ current budget and shall thereafter be included in the annual General Appropriations Act.”
“We are optimistic that the bill when approved would enable all agencies of all branches of government to comply with the requirements of the FOI law on mandatory disclosure,” he said.
With the approval of the proposed measure, the substitute FOI bill is expected to be delivered back to the committee on Public Information before it gets transmitted to the Plenary for Second Reading.
According to Section 9(b) of the FOI bill, all government agencies are required to publish and regularly update their own Freedom of Information Manual in full, containing the necessary information regarding the contact information of key offices and personnel, the type of information it holds and the procedures on how they should be accessed.
Public interests records concerning the particular agencies are also required to be published regularly on their websites.
“This means every website of each agency must contain documents about its annual budget, itemized monthly collections and disbursement, summary of income and expenditures, annual procurement plan and procurement list, bidding items and results of transactions. Also, all pertinent documents and records of transactions and meetings that are vested with public interest shall be made accessible to the public,” Gutierrez said.
“All agencies’ websites are further required to maintain a ‘cyber office’ wherein all the necessary information about the agency, the types and forms of services it offers and the standard procedures of access are provided and readily-available to the public online. Thus, with the aid of technology, we are advancing the people’s right to information while making the government more responsive to the needs of the people,” he said.
“In this sense, not only are we cutting the operating costs of the agencies, we would also be creating an e-government that is definitely closer and more accessible to the public,” Gutierrez said.
According to Gutierrez, all government agencies are required to set up a compliant website within two years from the approval of the bill.
He said this was in recognition of the possibilities that some agencies might not be able to readily comply due to inadequate resources and the need to build their capacity and practice to fulfill all requirements for mandatory closure provided by the law.
The lawmaker also expressed hope that, by the end of the second year once the law is implemented, even ordinary citizen can easily access national and local government services, the culture of secrecy becomes a ‘thing of the past’ and disclosure and transparency as the ‘default rule’ for governance in every government agency. (PNA)