Palace: Inter-agency team studying FOI bill

A government inter-agency team is currently studying two foreign laws on information in order for the executive branch to come up with a Freedom of Information bill, a Malacañang official said Monday. At a press briefing, presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said they are trying to address the concerns on both privacy and the public’s right to information in drafting the proposed measure, which seeks to give access to citizens to information being held by government offices. “We are studying it right now and (Budget) Secretary Butch Abad has been tasked to oversee the discussion and the drafting of the Freedom of Information Bill as far as the executive branch is concerned," Lacierda said. Subjects of the study are the Freedom of Information Act of the United States and the Official Secrecy Act of United Kingdom, as well as the version of the Freedom of Information bill that was filed in the last Congress. Among the agencies involved in the study are the Department of Justice, the National Security Agency, Presidential Communications Department and Strategic Planning Office, and Presidential Management Staff. Lacierda said the study aims to “give meat to the constitutional provision on the access to information." “Again, it’s a promise that we made—we are coming up with a Freedom of Information Bill," he said. Abad said they will present their report on the bill in the next meeting of the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC). Asked when the next LEDAC meeting would be, Abad did not give any exact date but said it would be soon as they still have to approve the Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP) for 2011-2016. LEDAC was supposed to convene every quarter. The Freedom of Information bill was excluded in the first LEDAC meeting of the Aquino administration, which was held on Monday, because of concerns on some provisions of the bill pending in the Congress. - KBK, GMA News