SIDEBAR
Triggers & barriers to access
By Karol Anne M. IlaganPhilippine Center for Investigative Journalism
A CLEAR, working system – with specific procedures and dedicated staff personnel – triggers quick, correct, and complete action by some government agencies on access toinformation requests.But the absence of such a system in most other agencies, as well as the lack of fullydefined rules and procedures that all agencies must observe in responding to requests,remain barriers to access.The bad results: inordinate delays, token compliance with lawful deadlines, disregard for the Constitution’s guarantees of the public’s right to know, and a general slide to secrecy,not transparency, in most of the bureaucracy under the Aquino administration.For instance, requests for copies of the Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth(SALN) that the PCIJ filed with the secretaries of Finance and Interior and LocalGovernment drew quick and correct action.The requests were forwarded promptly to the departments’ respective personnel units thathad copies of the documents. The personnel units approved the. requests like these wereregular office transactions. Ahead of the 10 working days’ deadline in law for agencies toact on SALN requests, the two institutions got the work done.In contrast, most other agencies moved exceedingly slow on similar requests, flipped andtossed the requests to other agencies, or simply ignored and rebuffed the requestsoutright.The Office of the President and the Ombudsman are the stellar examples of restrictive,inefficient access to information regimes in place today.Yet another is the Philippine National Police. Over the last three months since Feb. 18,the PNP has passed around the PCIJ’s request for SALNs to at least five PNP units: fromthe office of the PNP director-general to the office of the PNP Internal Affairs Service, tothe office of the PNP Chief of the Directorial Staff, to the PNP Public Information Office(PIO), and finally, to the PNP Directorate for Personnel and Records Management(DPRM).Three months and five offices later, the PNP has yet to provide the PCIJ a single page of a single SALN that any of its top cops had filed.
On Apr. 26, or 10 weeks after the PCIJ request was filed, the PNP’s PIO told PCIJ thatthe request should be sent to the PNP-DPRM, where a staff personnel told the PCIJ that itis the PNP-PIO that should decide on the matter. The PNP-DPRM staff said theinformation enrolled in the SALNs are “sensitive.” The employee later advised to thePCIJ to write another letter addressed to the PNP chief, with a note of attention to theDPRM head.Multiple layers of bureaucracy, buck-passing, inordinate delays, and seemingindifference to or ignorance of the relevant laws on the part of some agencies – all these barriers are sure to test the patience and stamina of those filing requests for access toSALNs and other documents.This was the situation in the House of Representatives for three years’ running under Speaker Prospero Nograles Jr. of the 14
th
Congress, which lingers in part to this dayunder Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. of the 15
th
Congress.The PCIJ’s request for the SALNs of House members made the rounds and went back and forth in multiple office units of the chamber – the office of the Secretary-General,which forwarded the request to the House Legal Division and to the offices of all themembers of the House.The Legal Division later sent back the PCIJ request to the Secretary General for her approval. After this was granted, the Secretary General’s Office moved a transmittalletter with its stamp of approval to the House Records Division.But the run-around did not stop there. Follow-up calls had to be made with the HouseRecords Office before it finally acknowledged the Secretary General’s approval andactually allowed the release of the SALNs for reproduction.This resort to red tape also marked the action of the Office of the Ombudsman to similar requests that the PCIJ had separately filed with the nation’s top integrity agency. Under just-resigned Ombudsman Ma. Merceditas N. Gutierrez, the agency had reverted to old,restrictive procedures in dealing with requests for SALNs.The requests filed with Gutierrez’s office were referred first to the Office of Legal Affairsso it could study and recommend action on the same. The catch was that therecommendations of the Office of Legal Affairs had to be sent back to Gutierrez for her final approval. Despite these restrictive and redundant procedures, however, the PCIJ encountered someofficials who demonstrated exemplary openness and respect for the public’s right toknow.This honored and honorable roster includes Commission on Elections (Comelec)Commissioner Rene V. Sarmiento and three House members: Batanes Rep. Henedina R.Abad, Lanao del Sur Rep. Mohammed Hussein P. Pangandaman, and Abante Mindanao
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PCIJ Sidebar. Triggers and Barriers to Access. 1 May 2011
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