(Wikipedia Photo)
LEGAZPI CITY – The Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) and the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) will hold Wednesday an information caravan on Freedom of Information (FOI) aiming for the development of good governance through transparency, at the Legazpi City Convention Center here.
Marlon Atun, PIA information officer for Albay, in an interview Tuesday, said the caravan wants the stakeholders from different walks of life to be informed of the FOI. This will, in turn, provide appreciation and encourage participation to achieve its goals.
Atun said the FOI Caravan would be a training program and would feature lectures and workshops designed to communicate proper knowledge about the FOI.
As an expression of strong commitment in their campaign, PCOO Assistant Secretary Kris Ablan would be present in the event to conduct the FOI program orientation.
In attaining the goal of the caravan, the active participation of the target participants is of high importance, he said.
The caravan would also serve as an avenue for a participatory discussion with encouragement of open participation of the invited sectors in the community, Atun added.
The target audience includes selected representatives from concerned stakeholders from the academe, local government offices, law enforcement, and civil society.
The PCOO, armed with its mandate to be the communication arm of the government, has initiated the said caravan that focuses on the FOI as part of the agency’s Information, Education and Communication (IEC) campaign.
The FOI is among the first executive orders signed by President Rodrigo Duterte upon his assumption to office last year. It took effect on July 23, 2016 with the aim to provide assurance that the people’s Constitutional rights to obtain necessary information are upheld.
However, with the FOI being an EO, only those government offices and institutions under the executive branch are mandated to comply with it. The institutions include government owned and controlled corporations (GOCC), state universities and colleges (SUC), and local government units (LGU).
The EO does not cover offices under the legislative branch like the Senate and House of Representatives, or those under the judiciary branch, like trial courts.
Constitutional commissions like the Commission on Elections (Comelec), Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and the Civil Service Commission (CSC), are also exempted from the FOI as their independent function is mandated directly by the Constitution.
Under the FOI, a Filipino citizen must freely be given access to data and records in the government, in order to promote transparent and clean administrative processes in the government.