MANILA, (PNA) – A week after easily hurdling the committee level, Senator Grace Poe is ready to submit on Monday the committee report of the Freedom of Information Bill.
”Yes I will submit the committee report on Monday,” Poe said on Sunday.
However, Poe clarified that she is set to deliver her speech about the committee report on Wednesday.
Poe expressed confidence that majority of her colleagues will support the passage of the bill which the Senate committee on public information and mass media approved last week.
”Our colleagues in the Senate have expressed support because they realized the importance of this kind of bill specially with what is happening right now,” Poe said, referring to the controversial pork barrel scam involving some public officials, including lawmakers.
Poe is expecting other authors of the bill like Senators Sonny Angara, Toefisto Guingona III and Majority Leader Alan Cayetano to extend support in coming out with a well-studied version of FOI bill.
Once enacted into law, Poe said the FOI will be integrated in the school curriculum to make sure that more people will understand their rights under the law.
”I’m encouraging the Department of Education and Commission on Higher Education on the need to integrate this FOI in the school curriculum,” she said.
She would also encouraged the concerned government agencies and local government units to come up with a simplified manual of the FOI law.
”We want everybody, even ordinary Filipino, to understand and exercise their right under the FOI,” the neophyte senator said.