POGI BILL-Emily Victoria Oke-Central Philippine University

It is not beneficial because it doesn’t promote speedy trials on transparency based on its “mere denial in good faith” clause.

Section 21 of the POGI bill states that a mere denial in good faith of a request made pursuant to the provisions of this Act shall not constitute grounds for administrative, civil, or criminal liability.

Upon encounter of this portion in the bill, I was like…’’Are you kidding me, is this some kind of a joke?’”

So much more in a country such as ours deemed in recent surveys as one of the most corrupt in the whole world.

This simply shows that we don’t take these matters seriously. My question is are you telling me that we are going to dismiss speculations just because a politician has done questionable acts on good faith?

How can we even gauge it, we cannot impose nor object if an official would say, “hey,it was denied in good faith”’

This makes due process for questionable practices of government and public officials subjective and unjust since one cannot judge the intentions of other people, thus having provided this in the bill, one must first have a trial to prove that something is denied in bad faith before proceeding on trying the questionable act itself.

This would make the prosecution superficial , not only would it be too long because it will be your word against theirs, there is no guarantee that indeed a fair decision would be made, because after all, you can always say that you have done something in good faith and no one could say that you’re lying.

This would be a failure in the campaign of the administration to improve transparency in the government, since officials are given opportunities to cover up there corrupt and unjust practices knowing that they could always deny them in good faith.

It is not beneficial because it doesn’t improve the current system.

The freedom of information bill based on senate bill no. 3208 if implemented is a duplication of the self executory right to information that is provided by the Constitution ,the greatest law of the land. Article III, Section 7 clearly states that the right of the people to information on matters of public concern shall be recognized. Access to official records, and to documents, and papers pertaining to official acts, transactions, or decisions, as well as to government research data used as basis for policy development, shall be afforded the citizen , subject to such limitations as may be provided by law.

This bill is just another way of stating the right that has never been taken away nor denied of the people. Thus, the problem is not on the availability and accessibility of this right, it is on acknowledging that we rightfully own it, and practice it by all means possible to us

It is not beneficial because it is an added cost.

Sec 23 of the POGI bill states that the amount necessary to carry out the provisions of the Act shall be charged against the agencies’ current budget and shall thereafter be included in the annual General Appropriations Act.

Let me ask you, would you spend on buying something that you know you already have? This is the exact ,same case we are dealing with today. The government would once again invest on a bill that says almost the same thing as what is being indicated in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution as something automatically given and entitled to you as a citizen of the Philippines. To make everything simpler and less complicated, let us ask ourselves this, is it beneficial to pursue the implementation of a bill that would use up my country’s resources when I could have the option of going back to my absolute right, acknowledge it and walk along the streets, knowing that I already have it ever since, simple as that. Our beloved country, is considered third world, developing, we should try to maximize our resources , and clearly dwelling on this bill and trying to implement it makes us put our money,time and efforts where it shouldn’t be. Wise decisions and pure motifs are what we need to have, we should be vigilant and know where our rights begin.

It is not beneficial because it doesn’t bring any good to the country.

This is the statement of our president Benigno Aquino III on October 1, 2012.The president, is after all the father figure of this nation, as a father shouldn’t he be sensitive to the welfare of his people? He knows for a fact that it doesn’t bring any good to the nation, and there are more matters of public concern that we should frontline in our priorities, let us not act in double jeopardy and redundancy, let us be precise and wise users of our resources, because after all we only live once, there’s no time to waste .