Robredo as a champion
of transparency

ONE JOURNALIST put it succinctly following the death of the Interior Secretary: the late Jesse Robredo was already a champion of Freedom of Information long before it became known as FOI.

That’s because Robredo was well known for instituting transparency reforms in Naga City where he served as mayor for almost two decades. These were the same transparency reforms that he sought to implement in the Department of the Interior and Local Government, even though he met with some resistance from some local government units.

What made Robredo’s transparency advocacy all the more remarkable was the fact that he made it clear he was not doing it to score points with the media. No, Robredo believed in transparency because he knew that the real stakeholders and beneficiaries of FOI are the people that the government is supposed to serve. In fact, in an interview with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism in 2011, Robredo made his pitch for transparency in government without once even mentioning the media. This was because it was clear to Robredo who this advocacy was really for, and who would benefit the most from an FOI Act.

Here are excerpts from that 2011 PCIJ interview with Sec. Jesse Robredo: