Palace: No special session for FoI passage
By Aytch S. dela Cruz 06/08/2010 Holding a special session in the House of Representatives for the sake of ratifying the Freedom of Information (FoI) Bill will not make any difference since the country is just counting days before the 15th Congress opens, Malacañang said yesterday. Deputy presidential spokesman Gary Olivar said FoI advocates can certainly address this request to outgoing President Arroyo but he expressed doubts that this move can overturn that which has already happened. “They are welcome to talk to the President about this but, you know, at this point, the next Congress already waiting in the wings and everyone is occupied with the transition and the new folks are coming in the government. The congressmen already had their chance in the regular sessions and they came very close to it and they still did not succeed, so it’s not clear to me how trying again (through a special session), at this point, will make a lot of difference,” Olivar explained. Olivar argued that the FoI bill can always be re-filed in the next Congress or even address it to Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo herself who might want to take the lead in pushing this bill in the 15th Congress. He has also maintained that the Arroyo administration should not be held accountable for the death of the FoI bill and neither should the four Arroyos absent in the House of Representatives during its final session held last Friday be singled out in the blame game. Olivar implied that this problem on quorum has been attributed to so many reasons by several quarters including prior personal commitments that some lawmakers may have when the 14th Congress adjourned sine die last Friday and that there occurred a possible miscount by the secretary-general and the usual allegations coming from other party-list groups. “It’s not clear to me what really went wrong but the bottom line is how ever you want to look at it and whatever the reason was, the sponsors of this bill have failed. So why should we believe that if we have another special session, they will succeed?” he said. “Anyway, the other sponsors of bill manifested that the administration of Senator Aquino can take this matter into account. So, you know, maybe that’s a more productive way to go. In any case, for whatever its worth, the President supported it when she was the President and when she moves to Congress, they can count on at least one supporter for this bill and that could be her,” Olivar stressed. Cibac partylist Rep. Joel Villanueva yesterday again claimed there was more than a quorum in last Friday’s closing session of the 14th Congress where the House was supposed to ratify the FOI Bill. Source: The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100608hed3.html |
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