Lowered House

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Lowered House
Sunday, 06 06, 2010

The failure of the House of Representatives to ratify - before it adjourned sine die last Friday – the bicameral conference committee report on the disagreeing provisions of the Freedom of Information (FOI) bills of the Senate and the House, respectively, is a betrayal of the public trust.

The Right to Know. Right Now! Coalition, of which Transparency International (Philippines) is a member, branded as doublespeak the claim of Speaker Prospero Nograles that he did his best to get the report on the FOI ratified. At the Kapihan sa Sulo yesterday, lawyer Nepomuceno Malaluan, coalition spokesperson, said that even as Nograles publicly professed support for the ratification of the report, there were numerous acts by the House leadership that betrays its determined resistance to secure the ratification.

The Senate had already ratified the report on the FOI in February of this year. Yet, Nograles found every reason not to have the same report ratified by the House of Representatives. On February 2, 2010, copies of the report were distributed to the members of the House, but the members of the House mysteriously went missing at the session hall when it was calendared for ratification. Again, on February 3, 2010, the House adopted or concurred with no less than 15 Senate bills, and ratified one conference committee report. However, the report on the FOI was conveniently left out. On May 24, 2010, Nograles implored the proponents of the bill to withdraw their motion to ratify the conference committee report, and committed to include it in the agenda of the House on May 31, 2010. May 31, 2010 came and went without any action on the report.

Then, on June 4, 2010, after succeeding in convincing Representative Benny Abante, sponsor of the report, to deliver a manifestation on the prospective application of the FOI, obviously to shield some officials in the outgoing administration from any criminal action, Nograles, in a supreme act of betrayal, instead opened and closed the session, blitzkrieg style, and muzzled and gagged the proponents of the bill by turning off the microphones in the session hall, and invoking a quorum call which was unnecessary (or waived) in cases of ratification of conference committee reports.

Abante, CIBAC representative Joel Villanueva, and their colleagues in the House held on to the promise of Nograles to get this important piece of legislation enacted into law, one that has been introduced and re-introduced since 1987 to put flesh to the “right of the people to information on matters of public concern” under Section 7, Article 3 of the Constitution. They kept faith that Nograles will be capable of rising to the challenge of a Constitutional duty. Instead, they were betrayed. The betrayal was carried on national television, gaining for the House of Representatives a new name as the Lowered House, with Nograles as the ringleader of the conspiracy to kill the FOI bill.

This latest act of betrayal of the public trust by Nograles is not surprising to many. Nograles, who will be leaving (thankfully) the august halls of the House of Representatives on June 30, lost his chance at redemption. He will carry that tag that he presided over the affairs of the Lowered House on June 4, 2010.

The Right to Know. Right Now! Coalition will now have to wait for the Fifteenth Congress to tackle anew the bills calling for the enactment of a Freedom of Information Act. A special session of the Fourteenth Congress to tackle the report on the FOI is out of the question: how can anyone expect the principal beneficiary of its non-enactment call for a special session! Common, Cas Navarro, tell that to Sammy Martin, who told me yesterday that he came upon a white envelope with one thousand peso bills bundled about an inch thick left behind on the desk of a member of the House who was conveniently absent when the quorum was being determined. [But that is another story, or is it?]

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In the Fifteenth Congress, it would do well to put a clamp on the tyranny of the Speaker of the House of Representatives to dictate when a conference committee report should be submitted for ratification. How about an amendment to the Rules of the House in this regard, thus: “Consideration of a bicameral conference committee report on the disagreeing provisions of bills shall always be in order; provided, that such report shall be submitted to the House within five (5) days from the date of the report; provided further, that in case the report is not ratified by the House for any reason within the period of five days from the date of the report, the report shall be deemed ratified nonetheless.” Representative Erin Tanada, who has labored long on the enactment of a Freedom of Information Act, promised to introduce this amendment.

The Right to Know. Right Now! Coalition has vowed to take the campaign to an even higher level. The coalition said that it is not only the right to information that Nograles succeeded in killing, but his word of honor, integrity and leadership. He may have delayed the enactment of the Freedom of Information Act, but he has not defeated it at all. The coalition says that the right to information springs forth from sovereignty that resides in the people; it will endure.

Now, pending the enactment of the Freedom of Information Act by the Congress of the Philippines, we hope that the incoming administration will see to the immediate issuance of an executive order that will govern the access to official records and to documents and papers pertaining to official acts, transactions, decisions, as well as to government research data used as basis for policy development.

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