![\"The](\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/15003386_1185330604869032_3047260763588145673_o.jpg\")
<\/a>MANILA\u2014The Freedom of Information (FOI) bill hurdled the committee level at the House of Representatives on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The House Committee on Public Information chaired by ACT Teachers Party-List Rep. Antonio Tinio approved the substitute bill consolidating 35 proposed measures.<\/p>\n
“We are working for the swift enactment into law of the FOI Bill, considering that this is one of the priorities of the Duterte administration,” said Tinio.<\/p>\n
“We hope that, with the support of the House leadership, we will soon be able to take up the FOI bill in plenary,” Tinio added.<\/p>\n
The FOI bill embodies the two aspects of the right to information as mandated by the 1987 Constitution, namely, full public disclosure and citizens’ access to information.<\/p>\n
The approved measure reiterates the Constitution’s mandate to disclose the Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth of certain officials.<\/p>\n
Public interest documents or records, such as contracts with the private sector and those which are budget-related, are required to be published by government agencies in their websites.<\/p>\n
“The policy of full public disclosure is not fully fleshed out in our current laws. The FOI bill seeks to address that gap,” said Tinio.<\/p>\n
The bill also mandates every citizen\u2019s right to ask for and receive information from government, subject only to a limited number of exceptions.<\/p>\n
The bill also sets the procedure of requesting for access to information and documents up to appeal in case of denial.<\/p>\n
Administrative and criminal liabilities for violation of the right to information will also be put in place through this measure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MANILA\u2014The Freedom of Information (FOI) bill hurdled the committee level at the House of Representatives on Wednesday. The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":89584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,16,95],"tags":[15250,3373],"class_list":["post-89583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-antonio-tinio","tag-freedom-of-information","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}