IN THE NEWS: the bill would be referred to the plenary for debates by the 300 House members amid protests from the opposition led by Congressman Neri Colmenares of the party-list Bayan Muna (Country First), one of the three committee members who voted against the measure. Colmenares described the bill as “toothless” whose provisions would make it more difficult to make public officials accountable for their actions. Colmenares lamented he was one of the sponsors of the bill but the committee itself disregarded his amendments. He cited as an example the “suspicious insertion” of a vague provision that a public official might use to deny a request for information because it would frustrate the implementation of a policy or a law. Colmenares asked: “Why are we making it difficult for our people and even the media to obtain information with this catch-all phrase? Any official can invoke this to block all legitimate requests. This defangs the bill.”
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 08:33:20 +0000
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