Makati Business Club calls on national candidates to prioritize FOI

A group of the country’s biggest businesses on Tuesday called on national candidates in the upcoming elections to push for more transparency and the passage of the Philippine freedom of information (FOI) law should they win the post.

According to Makati Business Club (MBC) executive director Coco Alcuaz, the passage of the FOI will arm both the citizenry and the private sector, making the government more accountable moving forward.

“We believe in democracy and we believe you need an informed citizenry to make democracy work. We believe FOI is one of the rights and tools of an informed citizen,” he said in a virtual press conference.

Alcuaz noted that the most recent development on the matter came last year when the House of Representatives committee on public information consolidated several measures which seek to boost the country’s FOI.

This includes measures involving people’s right to information, the implementation of constitutional policies on public disclosure, ensuring public access to official records, and enabling the public’s constitutional right to access to information.

Should it be passed, the FOI bill would mandate offices under the Executive Branch to fully disclose official public records.

President Rodrigo Duterte signed an Executive Order for the FOI program in July 2016, but this did not cover legislature, judiciary, and local government units (LGUs), while encouraging them to observe the order.

“For the business sector, FOI is one of the tools that gives us more confidence to make decisions that create jobs,” Alcuaz said in the same conference, noting that the private sector accounts for most of the FOI requests in countries with the law.

“FOI would give the business sector confidence to know what there is to know about sectors or locations they want to invest in, whether this knowledge is what the government plans to do or agency data on the results of previous or current activities in that space,” he explained.

MBC has long been in partnership with the Center for International Private Enterprise for such an initiative, which they said should be among the priority discussions in the campaigns leading up to the national elections in May.

Among the panelists on Tuesday’s conference was the Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition, which earlier urged national candidates to disclose their statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALN) and sign a waiver to grant public access to other relevant documents and records.—AOL, GMA News