Right to Know, Right Now: A primer on access to info

The following is a primer prepared by Access to Information Network (ATIN) convenor Atty. Nepomuceno Malaluan on the Access to Information bill still pending in the Senate. The House of Representatives version was passed on third reading in March last year, yet the Senate is only scheduled to discuss its version on the Senate floor within the week:

RIGHT TO KNOW, RIGHT NOW!
Nepomuceno A. Malaluan*
27 May 2009

The proposed Freedom of Information Act will be up for consideration by the Senate plenary on Second Reading once it hurdles the vote at the Committee on Public Information and Mass Media. The House of Representatives has already done its work, having approved its counterpart measure (House Bill 3732) as early as 12 May 2008. On Second Reading, Committee on Public Information Chairman Senator Alan Peter Cayetano will present to the senate plenary the consolidated/substituted version after undergoing committee hearings and consultations. Floor debates and amendments, if any, will follow, culminating in the Senators’ vote on the Second Reading version of the bill.

What happens to the bill at the Senate plenary will be a test of every Senator’s commitment to transparency, accountability, democracy, and respect for human rights. At stake too at this crucial juncture is the country’s strategic future, given the critical role of public access to information in combating corruption that has weighed down development, as well as its role in securing meaningful public participation to facilitate effective and responsive government policies. We trust that none of the twenty-three incumbent Senators of the 14th Congress will work to water down or to block the passage of the bill.

Read the whole primer