Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 23:44:00 04/01/2008
The Palace has proclaimed the Supreme Court's decision in Neri v. Senate Committee as a restoration of the appropriate balance of power between contending branches of government. And yet, the Palace's real cause for celebration—that the decision allows the administration to clamp down on access to information—has been pointed out by both a former chief justice and one of the framers of our present Constitution, Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J. Former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban wrote in dismay, "The majority should have relied on the constitutional mandate requiring transparency and accountability of officials." Bernas was equally blunt, calling it "a dangerously crippling decision." Both pointed out that the constitutionally ordained policy of transparency has been defanged, as a consequence of the decision.
What the Palace has really set out to do is to establish a three-pronged strategy for governance based on the fabled three monkeys.
The first monkey—say no evil—was Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who has announced that henceforth Cabinet and other executive officials will not attend Senate inquiries until that chamber publishes its rules, a delaying tactic but part and parcel of an altogether larger effort to simply assert that all these past months of embarrassing accusations and revelations were a non-event. As Ermita suggested, the Palace is inclined to view the past hearings as "null and void," whatever that means. Perhaps, that history is, indeed, written by the victors? Or, as is more likely, as part of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's—and her officials'—defense before the courts.
The second monkey—see no evil—was identified by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) in its recent report titled, "Gov't curbs access to information amid Senate scrutiny of projects." In a six-month period, the PCIJ, in pursuit of a series of special reports, "filed 23 written requests for documents with various government agencies. Only 15 were granted, for a 65 percent response rate, even as many of the agencies failed to provide all the data that the PCIJ had asked for. The agencies that turned down the requests similarly invoked either the so-called confidential nature of the documents requested, or the seemingly catch-all excuse called 'executive privilege.'"
This tells us that even prior to the Supreme Court's decision, the bureaucracy had already been primed to assert the Palace's interpretation of how it could and would control access to public information, regardless of past precedents. The National Economic and Development Authority, for one, was formerly a transparent institution. It used to grant the PCIJ's requests for data regarding projects using official development assistance. "But after Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita issued a memorandum order last Sept. 28 restricting the release of specific national broadband network (NBN) documents to the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, as well as to media agencies, Neda stopped processing requests for information connected to the project," the PCIJ wrote.
This tells us that a policy that is not even supported by anything more than the defensive posture of the Palace will now become a wall fortified by the Supreme Court behind which not only the present administration but future ones can hide-with impunity.Harmed by previous testimony, the Palace has decided to compartmentalize governance. Everything is now on a need-to-know basis, with the only people in the know being the President and her closest advisers. Everything else can't be known, because documents will be systematically withheld, opportunities for questioning officials will be resisted, and officials required to deal with the public will be kept in the dark.
This brings us to the third monkey—hear no evil—exemplified by Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo, whose only qualifications for her job are a colossal—because comprehensive—ignorance of facts. Knowing nothing, she can reveal nothing.
With these three monkeys of governance, the Palace has set out to make monkeys of us all.
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