The Philippines Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) in partnership with the Department of Journalism (DOJ) and PUP Journalism Guild (PUP JG), holds a forum on Freedom of Information (FOI) with the theme, "Accessing Government Information to Inform Advocacy Campaign," on May 19 at the PUP-COC Audio-Visual Room.
The forum was joined by the various government agencies, which tackled their case studies about workers, agriculture, climate change, and how the freedom of information works in getting information and data from government offices.
"Democracy depends on access to information and people can only make the best decision for themselves and for their country if they are properly informed [...] that's why we always perceive this time of difficulties," said Carmela Fonbuena, the Executive Director of PCIJ, as she gave the opening remarks to the event.
Under former President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order No. 2, the order implementing FOI in the Philippines gives access to any government offices' data to use as transparency for the public.
Center for Migrant Workers (CMW) representative Christel Sobredo also shared the significance of data for their organization, which then helps to visualize issues facing migrant workers.
CMW is a non-profit organization that helps to capacitate the migrants in terms of social, economic, and even community based, aims to lessen the capacity of migrant workers.
"Government agencies were able to acknowledge the FOI request [...] but after that, wala nang maririnig. You have to follow up again until sinabi nila na wala silang data or wala silang specific or they are trying to collect pa rin 'yung data," Sobredo said.
Sobredo also shared takeaways about FOI, including that some government agencies have ‘poor data management’ in terms of freedom for recitation, formatting, transparency, and quality of data provided.
It was also one of the hindrances for Partido Manggagawa in launching some of their projects that were canceled, as it took a year to receive a response from their proposals, said representative Randy Miranda on the forum.
Partido Manggagawa or Labor Party is one of the political parties in the Philippines that aims to form unity among Filipino workers to have social progress mainly in terms of wage and to fight against red-tagging.
The forum was also joined by Atty. Aison Garcia from Ateneo de Manila University and speakers from the Philippine Movement for Climate Change, the Social Security System, and the Energy Regulatory Commission.
PUP-COC Dean Hemmady Mora and PUP JG adviser Rennalyn Valdez were present at the forum as co-organizers of the event.
Article: Alexandra Mae Uy
Graphics: Yuko Shimo
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