Like yesterday

So when are we going to have a Freedom of Information Act?

That’s the question Radio Veritas, the bishops, the netizens, the marchers who marched at the Million People March and subsequent marches, civic groups, the NGOs, a public that’s fed up with pork, are asking.

Sonny Belmonte says he’ll get one out eventually. “I get things done, look at my record. What I can commit to is that you will have an FOI in my term.” Whether it will have the “right of reply” in it, he doesn’t know yet.

That’s all very well except for one thing. The FOI was due like yesterday.

In the past, what stopped it dead in its tracks or brought it to a crawl is the “right of reply,” which several legislators tacked onto it. Which is atrocious. You’d almost think they did it deliberately to ensure its failure. The “right of reply” has no place in an FOI. Whoever thought of it ought to be shot.

At the very least, that’s so because it lumps together apples and oranges. The FOI is a demand on government to open its books and documents to public scrutiny in the interests of transparency. The “right of reply” is a demand on the media to open their pages or airtime to the ululations of public officials in the interests of ego, or desire to grandstand. The only thing that remotely connects them is that they are both a demand. But the first is perfectly reasonable, the second not so.

In fact, the “right of reply” is an imbecility whether it is tacked on to the FOI or not. Have some public officials been attacked by the media unfairly? Yes. Have the media, mainstream and social, sometimes, or often, proved abusive and reckless? Yes. The free press, like elections, has its share of drawbacks. Elections do not always produce edifying results, as those who have despaired of them lament. In this country in particular, popularity rocks, vote-buying mocks, and you will always have clowns running around all over Congress and the local governments. That is not a reason to scrap elections.

Any more than the abuses of media are a reason to scrap press freedom. Which is what the “right of reply” does.

You grant public officials the right to appear in newspapers, TV and radio, to the same extent, or to the same column inch and airtime, they deemed themselves to have been attacked, nothing would be left to the media for legitimate news. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry, or every Jinggoy, Bong, and Johnny would use it to advertise their virtues, quite apart from defend their vices. That is an assault on press freedom. That is scrapping press freedom.

While at this, public officials do not lack the means to defend themselves—and attack others, which they often do. Legislators in particular have their privilege speech, which, unlike the media, gives them immunity from suit. The executive and judicial branches have their own communication arms, funded with millions of pesos. What are they complaining about?

It’s the FOI itself that is not just needed, but is needed badly. Lest we forget, what sparked the need for it was Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo refusing to answer any questions about the NBN (national broadband network) on grounds of executive privilege. The FOI banishes that forever, compelling government officials to account for their doings to the public. That is quite apart from compelling government to open public records and documents to the public gaze.

Can that right be abused? Yes. Like all rights, it can. We do not lack for reckless journalists, politically partisan groups, lawyers’ groups, civic groups, NGOs, and fringe groups who will demand to see every scrap of information it takes their fancy to see. And armed with the FOI they are entitled to. Which may not only disrupt government work but should add an additional burden to it at cost to taxpayers. But it’s like elections and freedom of the press, which are open to abuse and have been abused. That is not a reason to not have them. Despite those abuses, they are still a joy to behold, they are still a privilege to treasure.

As is transparency. As is openness. As is the FOI.

Will the FOI stop corruption? Not necessarily, but it can advance it immeasurably. The law merely allows you to see things, it doesn’t bless you with sight. You still need people who know what to look for. But the access to things, the opening of things to sight, can be a powerful tool for those who know how to use it. After the pitch-black secrecy of the past government and grayish fuzziness of the current one, it should be a flashlight in the dark, or cobwebby corridor.

Again the notion that we do not really need it, that the P-Noy administration is reasonably transparent and up-front, is vapid. At the very least, the Disbursement Acceleration Program, a questionable thing in itself entailing a questionable presidential power to transfer funds from one program to another, and its even more questionable use at one point in the Corona impeachment, refutes it. Who knows? If an FOI were in place it might not have happened at all. Or we might have discovered it earlier.

At the very most, even if it were true, and it is for the most part despite these lapses, what happens with the next presidents? We’ve seen what the lack of it can do with the past regime. We can see the same thing again with the next one. It’s no great comfort that the only reason we’re not already enjoying an FOI today is that the current administration, which has shown that it can get Congress to see things its way when it wants to, doesn’t want to. It’s not pressing for it, it’s not making it a priority measure, it’s not moving heaven and hell to see it through. If not indeed itself blocking it.

It’s good to know that we will have an FOI eventually. But the point is, it’s well past due. We needed it like a long time ago.

We needed it like yesterday.