IN AN address Thursday night, President Rodrigo Duterte said he would implement the executive order on freedom of information next week, immediately after he has reviewed the draft submitted to him during a Cabinet meeting.
The order will be called “Operationalizing in the Executive Branch the people’s constitutional right to information and the state of policies of full public disclosure and transparency in public service and providing guidelines therefore.”
The order will only be binding to executive officials, Duterte emphasized, because of the separation of powers of the different branches of government. “It is up to Congress. If they want, they can file and maybe come up with a copy of the Freedom of Information Law,” he added.
“If they want” appears to be the operative phrase.
Over the course of many congresses, different versions of the freedom of information bill have been submitted. Discussions and debates have taken place, under different political contexts and legal nuances. Six years ago, then-presidential candidate Benigno Aquino III ran on the platform of transparency and good governance, promising to enact an FOI Law that would shed light on all government transactions.
Alas, these were just flowery promises, soon to be forgotten when Aquino won and started what he called the Daang Matuwid administration. In the most recent Congress, the Senate passed its version but the House failed to advance a counterpart.
While this was supposed to be a legislative failure—after all, lawmakers may not have been keen on making it easy for citizens to gain access to public records—it was also a reflection of the lack of will and sincerity of Aquino who is known to make legislators toe the line when he wanted to.
Separation of powers notwithstanding, the executive order will, we hope, set the tone for the other branches to follow suit.
The Duterte administration is only right to hurry up the process, because a genuine FOI environment—an order, a law, a ruling—has been long overdue.