Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa
the poem, andres bonifacio
the song, inang laya
Freedom of Information is not just about media
SAN FRANCISCO — President Benigno Aquino III has said he supports the Freedom of Information bill, which just took a small step forward this week with the approval of the House committee on public information.
But it’s clear that Aquino also has reservations about the FOI bill, and these concerns appear to be based on a misconception: He thinks Freedom of Information is all about media.
This was evident in some of his remarks focused on how FOI could help journalists.
In a speech last year, he said, “This right to know carries with it responsibilities – to use the information available in context; to present facts fairly; and to be conscious of some elements who may want to use the information not to inform the public, but to, rather, inflame them, ”Giving media more access to information, he continued, “does not mean that we want media to be lapdogs of government; at the same time, media shouldn’t allow themselves to be used as attack dogs either.”
More recently, Aquino even endorsed the controversial “right of reply” provision, which could essentially serve to intimidate and hamper media and give people in power even more power to suppress critics.
As he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, “If two sides of a story are reported, if the details of every news are accurate and the freedom of all Filipinos to form their own opinion is valued, then any journalist has nothing to worry about, isn’t it?”
Many of my Philippine media friends and colleagues will no doubt have a problem with that statement since most them believe in covering not just two, but many sides of every story.
It’s also hard to argue with some of the issues the president has raised in connection with the state of the Philippine media, including corruption and fairness. Many Filipino journalists I know share those concerns.
But the more important point is this: Freedom of Information is not just about journalists and journalism.
It says so at the beginning of the bill authored by Rep. Erin Tañada: “The State recognizes the right of the people to information on matters of public concern.” It does not say “the right of the media.”
Representative Tañada reiterated this to me during his recent visit to California, saying that point “is much misunderstood.”
The bill “is more of a citizen’s right to freedom of information and not the media,” he told me in an email shortly before flying back to Manila to make another attempt to save the bill.
“The constitutional provision on the Right to Information did not mention it as a media right but a citizen’s right,” he added.
The Philippines must define its own path on this issue.
But the country can learn a lot from the American experience when it comes to Freedom of Information. The US law, which was passed in 1966, is called the Freedom of Information Act, or the FOIA.
It’s even become a verb, ‘Foya.’
US journalists would typically say, ‘I’m going to Foya that document,” or ‘We can Foya the emails, letters and other communications on this subject.’ To be sure, the law has helped many newspapers and other media organizations in reporting on government.
But in fact, any person, including US citizens, foreign nationals, organizations, universities, businesses and state and local governments, can file a FOIA request.
The respected National Security Archives has a comprehensive list of FOIA successes, involving both media and non-media groups, on its website.
A few examples:
In April 2004, the Natural Resources Defense Council, using internal documents obtained through the FOIA, found out that while the Environmental Protection Agency had concluded that some kinds of rat poison posed a risk to children, the rat poison makers were given broad access to make changes in documents describing the risks.
In December 2005, the Migration Policy Institute of New York University Law School used data obtained through a FOIA to show that thousands of people accused by the Dept. of Homeland Security of being immigration violators were innocent.
In 2005, the Associated Press used FOIA documents to show that many small businesses who received government loans meant to help out those who were affected by the September 11 terrorist attacks didn’t need the help.
The AP studied documents on how $5 billion in loans were designated, and found that some of the money went to a South Dakota country radio station, a dog boutique in Utah and some Dunkin’ Donuts and Subway franchises that didn’t even know they were getting terrorism-recover related loans.
In a few cases, individuals were able to use the Freedom of Information Act to uncover important information.
In 2001, a historian at the National Security Archive reported that U.S. intelligence officers “deliberately skewed” evidence to make it appear that North Vietnamese ships attacked US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964. False reporting on the incident eventually led to the escalation of the Vietnam War.
In 2006, an independent transportation consultant, curious about New York’s taxi accident rates, found out, with the help of FOIA data, that passengers in New York taxis are twice as likely to be hurt in accidents as passengers in private cars because taxi riders usually don’t wear seat belts and can be injured by cab partitions.
Another point needs to be highlighted: Freedom of Information is not just about scandals and exposing secrets of people in power. It can also be about helping government and policy makers uncover problems.
That’s what happened in 2005 when the Richmond Times-Dispatch, using FOIA documents to review disciplinary reports and concluded that up to 75 percent of the cells in the Richmond City jail may have broken locks.
The paper looked into the problem after an escaped inmate killed another prisoner. As a result of the report, authorities found out that there was indeed a problem. They hired a locksmith to fix the broken locks.
A Freedom of Information law will not magically fix all problems in government. But it can help expand and strengthen Philippine democracy,
Yes, it can certainly help journalists do their jobs. But it’s much more than that.
philex, marcopper, waste spills
that’s the good news. the bad news is, philex spokesperson mike toledo says the company will file a motion for reconsideration.
“We will exhaust all administrative remedies provided for under the law, under the department circulars and administrative orders… We will appeal the MGB decision finding us liable for the payment of this fine,” he said.
Toledo said Philex is aiming to complete a clean up and rehabilitation of Padcal mine by the second quarter of 2013. The company hopes to restart operations by the second half of next year.
so i suppose the media spin goes on: that it was an accident, that philex responded right away with financial help to victims, that the waste spill is not as toxic as marcopper’s in 1996 — even if this last were true (we have yet to see toxicity studies) the sheer volume of the waste spill, some 20 million metric tons, said to be 10 times that of marcopper’s, still makes it the worse disaster, if not the worst, it would seem, ever.
it was no accident. it could have been avoided had philex built a new tailings pond instead of continuing to use an old one that was due for decommissioning by june 2012 at the latest.
read bulatlat‘s Philex’s 20 MT mine waste spill, ‘An act of God, or Greed?’
Since day 1 (last Aug 1) of the latest reported leak from the Philex tailings pond in the north, Philex has actively projected an appearance of taking responsibility.
Philex boasted that they shut down operations a day ahead of the government suspension. It also promised it will only continue mining operations at Padcal after assuring the “safety and integrity” of tailings pond 3, Padcal’s sole operational mine tailings pond at the site.
But contrary to Philex’s projection, it is not telling the public that instead of repair and remediation, it should have been decommissioning the Tailings Pond 3 as early as 2010 or at the latest, this June of 2012. The said tailings pond has reached the end of its 18 to 20 years’ lifespan this year, based on DENR data on the dam. An earlier waste spill from the same dam occurred in December 2009, and it should have been warning enough, the Katribu Partylist said in a statement.
victoria fritz, in ricardo saludo’s column space, submits that it would have cost philex much less if it had earlier built a new tailings pond instead.
Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) chief Juan Miguel Cuna said that Philex violated terms in its ECC for discharges “way beyond regulatory levels.” Cuna added that penalties for ECC violations were separate from fines for violation of the Clean Water Act, imposed by the Pollution Adjudication Board.
And if the ECC is revoked, closing the copper and gold mine would mean losing over P10 billion in revenues a year, going by the facility’s 2011 earnings of P9.29 billion from gold alone.
With those kinds of losses, it clearly would have been far cheaper to build a spare pond for P300 million, so tailings could be diverted there after two storms damaged the tailings facility on August 1. Now, on top of suffering massive losses and fines, Philex will still need to build a new pond or repair the old one, as it is considering so as to resume mining sooner.
in developed countries, here’s the drill in preventing and containing mining accidents:
For the Tailings Management Handbook of Australia’s Department of Industry Tourism and Resources, a state-of-the-art tailings storage facility is a safe, stable landform not requiring constant management after mine closure, and blending with the surrounding landscape.
That’s a tall order, since a tailings pool takes up a large area hard to hide. It must store huge volumes of water without letting any contamination to seep into the ground. And there are dust problems. Not to mention the threat of typhoons and floods in the Philippines.
For greater efficiency and economy, the facility’s processing plant must remove excess water from tailings before transport. More water and processed chemicals are recovered for reuse, to lessen the volume discharged to the storage facility. This reduces the risk of seepage to surface waters.
Many mines in Australia use thickened and paste tailings, once difficult due to the cost or lack of thickener technology. Today, expenses are down, and equipment has improved, producing high underflow densities. The thickened or paste tailings improves water and process chemical recovery at the processing plant, reduces storage volume and seepage, and creates a more stable landform.
Mining companies in developing countries like the Philippines should send staff to observe and train in the mines of select developed countries using state-of-the-art technology in minimizing mining risk.
… One cannot and should not force a false choice between prosperity from mining and environmental sustainability. With technology, enlightened management, and earnest, honest dialogue, solutions can be forged to prevent accidents and mitigate their effects. Only then can the national patrimony truly become a blessing for the Filipino people, not a resource exploited for profit to the detriment of nature and nation.
so it’s not true, as suggested by an environment advocate to rina jimenez-david, that “responsible mining” is an oxymoron, that there cannot ever be a mining operation that is “responsible” or which safeguards the community even as owners profit from it. responsible mining is doable but it means that both the DENR and the mining industry would have to level-up.
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After Philex mine spill, a world of gray
Untold story of Philex’s mine waste spill
Philex spill ‘biggest mining disaster’ in PHL, surpassing Marcopper – DENR
televise the trial 2
the supreme court giveth, the supreme court taketh away.
june 14, 2011 the corona supreme court allowed live televised coverage of the Ampatuan multiple murder trial, bowing to the clamor for transparency and the public’s right to know.
october 23, 2012. the sereno supreme court prohibits the live media broadcast of the Maguindanao massacre trial, bowing to the ampatuans’ rights to due process, equal protection, presumption of innocence, and to be shielded from degrading psychological punishment.
i blogged about this in nov 2010, a whole year after the maguindanao massacre. my beef then, as now, was, is, why the rights of the accused — in an open-and-shut case like this one — should be paramount to the rights of the victims and the public’s right to know.
the law is biased enough in favor of the accused. back in the ’90s i remember hearing the late quezon city regional trial court judge maximiano asuncion (branch 104) on tv saying that under our laws napakaraming karapatan ng akusado at iilan ang karapatan ng biktima o ng pamilyang naiwan ng biktima. to be sure, i googled it, and the issue turns out to be a very current one in the international arena, and there are continuing attempts to balance the rights of victims with the rights of the accused. check this out, and this.
of course the flip-flop only means another chain of motions for reconsideration atbp. which means a new round of delays, all in favor of the accused. and of course one wonders about the sereno supreme court. is this a show of judicial independence — that the president favors a televised trial does not count — or is this the beginning of a series of reversals, an augury of things to come?