The Right to Know. Right Now! network will hold a coordination meeting on January 7 to plan for the upcoming bicameral conference on the Freedom of Information bill which was passed in the Senate last December 13.

The Congress is currently in recess and will resume its session on January 18. We hope that the FOI bill will be one of its priority agenda given the short timeframe left before the election campaign period on the 2nd week of February.

The Senate will be represented by Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri and Sen. Pia Cayetano in the bicameral conference. The House of Representatives has yet to name its delegates and we hope that they will do this as soon as it resumes session.

We also urge the HOR to adopt the Senate version of the bill because we strongly support it and to also expedite the process of passing it.

Any support to the advocacy especially at the HOR will be very much appreciated. Kindly contact us at 09228266775 for any of these.

Although the Freedom of Information bill did not get to the Senate plenary before the session adjourned on 5 June 2009, the Access to Information Network (ATIN) considered the submission of the Committee Report a milestone in its advocacy.

Committee Report 534 containing Senate Bill 3308 or the consolidated version of the Freedom of Information Bill was submitted to the plenary for discussion on 3 June 2009 but was buried by other issues until the session adjourned.

While the submission of the Committee Report was indeed an achievement, ATIN remains anxious with the narrowing opportunity for the bill to be passed because of various factors.

One is the upcoming 2010 presidential election which left most Senators day- dreaming about their political ambitions. Another is the Constituent Assembly that successfully gained ground in the Senate and kept them busy responding to House of Representatives' illusion.

A sex scandal that surprisingly (or not surprisingly) reached the Senate also merited a series of hearings.

So ATIN intensified its campaign by tapping more civil society organizations to help push for the passage of the bill.

The traffic jam in front of the BIR office near Delta along Quezon Ave. has worsened this week with people rushing in and out of the compound and queuing to file income tax returns.  The traffic diverted my attention to the U-turn slot in that area with the sign "LIKUAN U" and right under it "(LEE KUAN YEW)", is this where our tax money is going?!