FOI = transparency and accountability

INFORMATION delayed is good governance denied.

For a minute last week, there was a glimmer of hope that President Benigno Aquino III will certify the Freedom of Information Bill as urgent, a certification that could have spelled the difference between the passage or the shelving (once again) of the long-overdue law that has been fermenting in the House of Representatives. But on February 1, all hope has been dashed. The President has been quoted in national media as saying: “That (certifying the FOI bill as urgent) is a very difficult request for me to do. There are specific conditions under the Constitution as to when I can use my powers to certify a measure as urgent.”

The reasoning of Secretary Herminio Coloma, who was in the region last week, that the Palace, and the President himself, has been championing transparency in government even without an FOI Law is simply lame. If the President intends to leave a legacy of good governance characterized by transparency and accountability as he has promised in his campaign three years ago and has repeatedly been pronouncing, it is not enough that he sets personal examples such as publicly disclosing his Statement of Assets and Liabilities. That is simply a choice, or a whim if you like, but not by any means a legal responsibility. What the country needs is an institutionalized system within which public servants, especially the elected ones, could be made accountable by the people for how public funds are spent – or misspent.

Without an FOI Law, we will face consequences such as those that we are seeing these days in Pangasinan — suspected corruption deals by local government units, particularly in Dagupan; the controversy over the golf course project in Lingayen — and in the national level, the senate scandal over utilization of its funds. Without an FOI Law, we can expect more.

The FOI Law is urgent and was needed yesterday. Let’s not forget where the bill was kept hanging. When the congressional candidates begin campaigning for the May elections, let’s ask them about the FOI, then we’ll most likely get a glimpse of where they stand on transparency and accountability.

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Un-presidential

PURE naivete. That’s what it’s all about.

We refer to President Aquino a.k.a. P-Noy requesting the Catholic bishops to forgive Carlos Celdran. If the Pope’s would-be assassin could be forgiven by the Pope, what more with the Pope’s subalterns doing the same thing to those that had wronged them?

Celdran had done wrong when he rudely intruded into a Mass being officiated by bishops at the Manila Cathedral in 2010. A Manila judge last week found Celdran guilty of “disturbing the peace” and meted him a prison term of up to one year. The verdict is on appeal. But even before Judge Juan Bermejo Jr. could hand down his decision, the bishops had long forgiven Celdran. Does P-Noy not know that men of cloth are the first to forgive?

Or was he merely trying to be cute? Un-presidential, to say the least.

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