Aquino’s anticorruption efforts not enough, says SocialWatch

PRESIDENT Aquino’s anticorruption campaign has not gotten a “passing mark” in good government from SocialWatch Philippines.

Lead convener Leonor Magtolis-Briones, a former National Treasurer, said that at best, she could only give the President a grade of 7 out of 10 because the Aquino administration has not yet charged “errants” at the Sandiganbayan and has failed to enact a Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.

“We still have to see results in terms of putting people in jail or bringing them to trial because after the hearings, after the investigations, after the newspaper headlines, we want to see the enforcement of the law and of the penalties because that has been the problem before. [There were] so many investigations [but no prosecution],” Briones said.

One of the ways by which the government can enforce the law is by empowering the citizens through an FOI Act, Briones said. An FOI Act, she said, would not only increase transparency and accountability in the country but also help citizens join in intellectual debates on corruption issues.

She explained that while some corrupt activities have been brought to light by the media, such as the fertilizer-fund scandal, various leads and tips could be gathered from citizens.

She said this could only be done if citizens could invoke freedom of information in obtaining government documents and then subjecting these data to proper and careful analysis.

“The FOI can be a very important tool in the fight against corruption.

We are not only talking about corruption here in terms of stealing, in terms of getting money that deprive people of services, but we’re also talking of the corruption of political systems, of ideas, of what democracy is all about,” Briones said.

Social Watch, a global network of citizens’ organizations campaigning for social and economic justice, said over 85 countries around the world now have FOI laws, with Sweden enacting the first access to information law in 1766

Despite the President’s approval of the FOI bill before his election in May 2010, his administration has not included the FOI Act among its priority bills for the next six years. This makes the Philippines among the 15 countries with pending FOI legislation.

The Philippines is host to this year’s Social Watch Global Assembly, where officials are calling for greater accountability from governments. The three-day global assembly in Quezon City was dubbed “Claiming Democracy: Accountability for Social and Economic Justice.”

According to Roberto Bissio of Uruguay, coordinator of Social Watch and executive director of the Third World Institute (Instituto del Tercer Mundo), Social Watch’s basic task of promoting government accountability has remained the same over time.

“In far too many places, the accountability process is made difficult or insufficient by different limitations to the basic rights: the right of citizens to voice their opinions, the right to assemble and the right to access government information,” said Bissio.

Bissio added that freedom of information is not a luxury of rich countries. “Sweden has that. But it is also working in India and Mexico. We, in Social Watch, believe the people in the Philippines and other countries will greatly benefit from it,” he said.

While the proposition that citizens should engage in making governments accountable is a simple one and its principles have universal acceptance, the way to do it varies from country to country, according to Bissio.

“The ‘naming and shaming’ mechanisms are essentially the same. A situation of injustice or rights violation is detected, information is gathered, a demand is articulated, solutions are proposed and the authorities are engaged to solve the problem or remove the obstacles. The Social Watch network amplifies these demands and through its reporting mechanisms provides a tool for groups to improve their capacities. One such mechanism is the development of rights-based indices,” Bissio said.

As the global network tackles transparency in public finance, Tanya Dawkins of the United States, cochairman of Social Watch Coordinating Committee, lamented the lack of urgency and creativity in resolving people’s issues of poverty and inequality.

She asked: “How come governments are quick to act and generate resources for banks drawn into the global financial crisis such that a bailout package is quickly put in place, yet it is long in patience when dealing with people’s issues? We have patience when it comes to poverty and inequality, but we don’t have patience to a bank going under. Isn’t that scandalous?”