The Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition issued a statement criticizing the inaction of President Aquino’s administration in pushing for a Freedom of Information law in the Philippines.
“More than 14 months into his term, President Aquino has not mustered the political will to honor his campaign pact with the people` to assure the passage of the Freedom of Information Act, the legislation the country needs to provide substantive, procedural, and institutional guarantee to the people’s constitutional right to information.
Instead, the promise of support has since turned into ever-mutating Presidential concerns over the FOI bill. After months of work by a Malacañang study group on the FOI bill, we have not seen any appreciable advance in the President’s position, or lack of position on the matter.”
The statement calls on President Aquino to “decisively assist…the immediate passage of the FOI law” by expressing in the Philippine action plan for the Open Government Project (OGP) a “full, firm, and explicit commitment to the immediate passage of the FOI law in the present Congress”.