Ex-Arroyo allies accused of blocking FOI bill’s passage

Lawmakers formerly aligned with ex-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo are “conspiring” to block the passage of the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill at the House of Representatives, a congressman and a group advocating the measure’s approval said Thursday.

 

Ifugao Rep. Teddy Brawner Baguilat Jr., one of the FOI bill’s co-authors, said former allies of the previous administration are making moves to “kill the bill.”

 

“They’re afraid of what may be unearthed further on the anomalies of the past that could implicate them,” Baguilat said in a text message.

 

He added that these lawmakers, whom he declined to name, are using the House committee on public information to “hold the bill hostage.”

 

The group “Right to Know, Right Now!” meanwhile named House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II and Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone as the lawmakers who are “setting up the FOI bill for a slow death.”

 

“By all indications, the real fear about the FOI bill that spooks Gonzales, entrenched politicians and political dynasties in the country is that it will open the door to legitimate public scrutiny into their official acts and transactions, and enable the people’s right to know the good, the bad, and the ugly about them all,” lawyer Nepomuceno Malaluan, the group’s co-convenor, said in a separate statement.

 

Both Gonzales and Evardone were members of the Arroyo-chaired Lakas-Kampi-Christian Muslim Democrats (CMD) party before they defected to the ruling Liberal Party (LP).

 

‘Totally untrue’

 

But Evardone, chairperson of the House public information panel, dismissed the accusations against him as “totally untrue.”

 

“They are fabricating baseless stories, and it appears that they are good at it,” the Eastern Samar congressman said in a separate text message.

 

The FOI bill, which seeks to lift the shroud of secrecy over government transactions and data, has been pending before Evardone’s committee since February last year.

 

Gonzales, for his part, said the FOI bill was only sidetracked because the House was more focused on the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill.

 

The House majority leader added that he personally thinks the FOI bill still has a chance to be passed if the House committee on public information sends it to the plenary for approval by next month.

 

“Any bill that is controversial, basta’t magkaroon lang naman kami ng consensus meron naman palaging pag-asa. Sa FOI, although it’s controversial, as soon as magkaroon ng common consensus, madali namang i-shepherd iyan,” Gonzales said at a separate press briefing.  — RSJ, GMA News