TRANSPARENCY and accountability are the currency of public trust.
Yet, nearly four decades after the 1987 Constitution guaranteed our right to information, Congress has yet to enact an enabling law. Every administration champions transparency on the campaign trail, only to let the measure stall in committees, get diluted in negotiations, or be buried beneath politically convenient priorities.
Now, the recent flood control scandal has revived the issue with greater urgency. It is no longer an abstract governance slogan. It is a vital, long-overdue weapon needed to stop public coffers from bleeding into the pockets of insatiable crooks.
The controversy proves that when public funds vanish, the consequences are measured in human suffering. Families lose homes, farmers lose crops, and children lose classrooms to evacuation centers. Infrastructure corruption is never just accounting fraud.
The harrowing congressional inquiries did more than expose raw greed. They revealed the gargantuan machinery that enables it — a system built in secrecy, hidden contracts, buried procurement documents, and agencies that only cough up data when public outrage leaves them no choice.
This shows that corruption thrives where scrutiny is weakest. When ordinary citizens cannot access contracts, disbursement records, or feasibility studies, holding the powerful accountable becomes an exercise in futility.
For years, journalists, academics, civil society organizations and governance advocates have warned about this fatal vulnerability. Among the most persistent voices is the Right to Know, Right Now Coalition, which has spent decades urging Congress to institutionalize access. Their argument remains bulletproof: Transparency cannot depend on the mood or goodwill of whoever sits in Malacañang. We need a law, not the fleeting mercy of a mere executive order.
In a healthy democracy, journalists should not have to rely on leaks to examine tax expenditures. Citizens should not need political connections to obtain public contracts. Local communities should not have to wait for Senate hearings to discover that the disaster mitigation project in their barangay is a multi-million ghost.
The Constitution gives us the right to information but lacks the teeth. It needs an enforceable mechanism to mandate uniform compliance and set clear timelines. Without it, access remains an uneven whim. Some offices cooperate, while others delay endlessly or treat public records as private heirlooms, paralyzing governance.
The good news is, after decades of delay, we are now closer to bringing the Constitution’s promise to fruition. The proposed Right to Information Act has now passed second reading at the House of Representatives.
This bill transforms this abstract ideal into a practical manual for accountability by forcing a paradigm shift in the bureaucracy.
First, it flips the bureaucratic default setting. Right now, the government’s instinct is to hide documents until citizens prove their right to see them. This law mandates that everything is public by default. To keep a document secret, a bureaucrat must legally prove that disclosure would genuinely harm national security.
It also imposes a ticking clock on government desks. To end endless delays and bureaucratic runarounds, the law sets a strict five-to-15-day deadline for agencies to process requests. Sitting on papers becomes an explicit violation.
It further pushes the government to embrace digitalization through “proactive disclosure.” Agencies will not wait for requests; they are legally required to upload major contracts, bidding documents, and budgets directly to open, searchable websites. Citizens should be able to verify local road spending on their phones even while stuck in traffic.
Finally, it introduces real consequences. For decades, officials hid documents because secrecy carried zero penalties. This measure enforces heavy fines, suspensions, and jail time for bureaucrats who intentionally conceal or destroy public records, turning stonewalling into a major career risk.
There are legitimate exceptions, such as national security, personal privacy and sensitive diplomacy. No serious advocate disputes that. But too often, “confidentiality” serves as a go-to shield against embarrassment rather than a protection of public interest. It is an instinct Filipinos know all too well. We have seen officials invoke secrecy to defend hundreds of millions in confidential funds, refuse disclosure until courts intervene, and allow investigations to unfold only after disasters trigger public anger. By then, the money is already gone.
The Right to Information Act will not magically eliminate dishonesty in the government ranks. But it will make concealment difficult, scrutiny effective, and public service more faithful to its name. More importantly, it reinforces a forgotten truth that government-produced information rightfully belongs to the taxpayers.
Congress can pass all resolutions, launch more grandstanding investigations, and deliver more privilege speeches it wants. But until citizens possess the tools to audit power and public spending, reform is merely cheap talk.
More than two centuries ago, James Madison warned, “A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or perhaps both.”
Looking at the corruption scandals plaguing our institutions, the Philippines has already experienced both. The current Congress must ensure that future generations do not.