Malacañang still lukewarm on FOI bill despite allies' backing

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang respects the plan of Senator Grace Poe-Llamanzares to prioritize the Freedom of Information bill but remains lukewarm on the controversial, years-old measure.

At a televised press briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said they have yet to discuss if the Palace will support the neophyte senator, who is an ally of the Aquino administration.

"It's her right if she wants to push with FOI. Every senator has seen what advocacies or bills they want to submit to Congress," Lacierda said.

"I don't wanna preempt the discussion of Sen. Grace Poe with President Aquino on that," he added.

Poe, a former chief of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board and the daughter of the late actor Fernando Poe Jr., now heads the Senate committee on public information.

The senator, who topped this year's elections, said she plans to pass the FOI bill without the controversial right-of-reply provision.

The FOI bill seeks to give the public more access to government records and transactions, earned the nod of senators during the 15th Congress but failed to be passed by the House of Representatives.

It was stalled in the House plenary and was not debated on.

The controversial measure was not mentioned by President Benigno Aquino III in his fourth State of the Nation Address on Monday.

In the newly-opened 16th Congress, at least two allies of President Aquino in the Senate have already re-filled the FOI bill, Senators Loren Legarda and Alan Cayetano

Both ran under the administration-backed Team PNoy in the recent elections.

Legarda said that freedom of information is an essential prerequisite for a modern democracy.

"Transparency in the public sector enables our people to engage in meaningful participation, promotes accountability, and mitigates corruption, which has long been a major obstacle to our country's development,"she said in an earlier statement.

According to a survey conducted by Transparency International, four in 10 Filipinos think corruption in the Philippines has “decreased a little” in the last two years.

Results of the “Global Corruption Barometer 2013” showed 35 percent of Filipino respondents believe corruption went down a little, 31 percent said the level of dishonesty “stayed the same” and only two percent said it decreased a lot.