November 9, 2009 · Posted in: General
March set today to rush Freedom of Info Law
THE CLOCK is ticking fast, and the Senators are now facing judgment: Are they champions of the people’s right to know?
The Senators have only 23 session days left before they adjourn for the May 2010 elections to pass their version of the Freedom of Information Act, a law that has been promised 22 years ago by the 1987 Constitution.
Senate Bill 3308 finally entered its period of interpellation last month, a full seventeen months after the House of Representatives approved on third and final reading its counterpart legislation, House Bill 3732.
Failure by the Senators to act on SB 3308 before Congress takes a long break on February 5, 2010 for the national elections would be a grave reversal, even a fatal blow, to passage of the law.
Such failure would mean that advocates of the law would have to restart the process of legislation from step one, file the bills anew in both the House and the Senate with possibly less certain results, when the 15th Congress opens on June 30, 2010 yet.
But the law’s advocates, the Right to Know, Right Now! Network and its members from over 70 organizations of journalists, academics, workers, youth, businessmen, religious and civil society leaders, as well as some members of Congress, are not leaving any thing to chance.
