Most promising moment for the right to know

The Right to Information (RTI) Bill has reached a point that advocates have long hoped for. The House of Representatives approved its version on third reading on June 2, with 284 affirmative votes, no negative votes, and no abstentions. Earlier, on May 4, the Senate passed its own version with 22 affirmative votes and likewise no votes against or abstentions. The measure now awaits bicameral reconciliation between the two chambers, ratification of the conference report, and subsequent presidential action.

At the same time, we continue to approach the legislative status with caution. For many observers, the developments may appear to signal that the enactment of an RTI law is well within reach, but veterans of the long campaign for freedom of information know better. The legislative process is not yet complete. Congress has adjourned sine die amid the Senate’s unusual and highly visible leadership dispute whose implications for legislative business remain uncertain.

Even with these caveats, we still conclude that this is the most promising moment in the long struggle for the people’s right to know.

This is not simply because the bill is approaching enactment. In fact, we have been procedurally even closer before. Those who have been part of the campaign since its beginnings in the 11^th Congress remember all too well what happened in the 14^th Congress in 2010. At that time, the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill had already gone through bicameral conference committee deliberations. The Senate had already ratified the bicameral report and passage appeared imminent. But a combination of political calculations and procedural maneuvers at the House ultimately stopped the measure from reaching the finish line.

What makes the present moment different is not legislative proximity alone. Rather, it is that the current legislative progress rests on a foundation of political acceptance, institutional experience, and democratic practice that did not previously exist.

For the first time, the legislative progress is accompanied by a broad political consensus that the constitutional right to information and the State policy of full public disclosure deserve comprehensive statutory operationalization. The non-adversarial process at the committee level and the overwhelming votes in both chambers of Congress are evidence of a degree of political acceptance that was absent during many earlier episodes in the FOI struggle. In a period marked by intense political competition and polarization, support for the measure has come from across party lines, ideological tendencies, and majority-minority divides. This suggests that the people’s right to know is increasingly viewed not as the agenda of a particular administration, opposition, or advocacy sector, but as a democratic norm that should endure across political transitions.

As important, the story of the right to know in the Philippines is no longer merely a story about legislation. The constitutional right to information dates back to the 1973 Constitution and was strengthened in the 1987 Constitution. For much of that period since 1987, the absence of implementing details through a law was viewed as the central obstacle in the full enjoyment of the right. The dominant assumption was that only after a law was passed could the practice of the right follow.

The country’s experience unfolded differently. Over the years, citizens, journalists, researchers, lawyers, community organizations, and civil society groups continued to test and exercise the constitutional right even in the absence of comprehensive legislation. Courts developed jurisprudence. Government agencies adopted varying disclosure practices. Budget documents, procurement records, audit reports, contracts, and administrative issuances increasingly became part of public scrutiny. Citizens learned not only how to ask for information, but also how to use it. The result is that the right to information has gradually developed as a social and democratic practice even before being fully institutionalized as a statutory system.

This development is visible within the government itself. When freedom of information was first seriously debated, many concerns were raised. Agencies worried about administrative burdens, operational disruptions, floods of requests, and the risks associated with disclosure. These concerns were not entirely unreasonable. Any system that opens government records to public scrutiny necessarily requires adjustments in records management, decision-making processes, and institutional culture.

The experience under Executive Order (EO) No. 2, issued in 2016, operationalizing the right to information in the Executive Branch, provided an important opportunity to test many of these assumptions. While EO 2 applied only to the Executive Branch and had limitations inherent in an executive issuance, it nonetheless provided nearly a decade of practical experience in processing requests, managing disclosure, developing standards, and building institutional capacity.

The Freedom of Information Program Management Office played an especially important role in this regard. Through capacity-building programs, standardization efforts, technical assistance, and sustained engagement with agencies, it helped demonstrate that operationalizing access to information is not only possible but manageable. It also helped build confidence within government that transparency can be implemented without impairing governmental functions.

Combined, these factors explain why the current legislation reflects an unusual degree of convergence among legislators, government agencies, the bureaucracy, media organizations, civil society advocates, and other stakeholders. The bill that emerged from the committee process reflects years of accumulated experience, dialogue, adjustment, trust-building, and learning about how access to information can work in the real world.

Still, the enactment of an RTI law, should it finally occur, will not represent the culmination of the right-to-know movement. In many respects, it will represent another beginning. The success of an RTI law will still be measured not by the statute nor by the number of requests filed each year, but by whether citizens use information effectively and responsibly, whether public institutions implement the law faithfully and professionally, whether records are properly maintained, whether disclosures are meaningful and timely, and whether information contributes to more informed public participation, stronger accountability, and ultimately, better services and development outcomes.

This is why this moment is so significant. The country may finally be approaching not only the enactment of a law, but the maturation of a democratic culture on the right to information capable of sustaining it. That, more than the legislative milestone alone, is what makes this the most promising moment for the people’s right to know.

Nepomuceno A. Malaluan is a co-convenor of the Right to Know Right Now Coalition (R2KRN). He is also a co-founder and trustee of Action for Economic Reforms (AER).