Official urges Ilonggos to avail of FOI services

By: Leonard T. Pineda I

THE Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) encouraged Ilonggos to make use and avail of the services of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Program.

In the PCOO roadshow held June 24, 2019 at Iloilo Science and Technology University (ISAT-U) in La Paz, Iloilo City, PCOO assistant secretary and FOI program director Kristian Ablan said majority of the requests they generated came from Luzon.

“Only eight percent were from the Visayas,” he said, adding that one of the reasons they are conducting the roadshow is to further scale up public awareness on the FOI program.

According to the agency’s report on the classification of public users, 4,706 (80 percent) were from Luzon, 481 (8 percent) were from Visayas, while 460 were from Mindanao.

The FOI program is a government mechanism, which allows Filipino citizens to request any information about government transactions and operations, provided that it shall not put into jeopardy – privacy and matters of national security.

Any Filipino citizen can make an FOI request including information, official records, public records, and, documents and papers pertaining to official acts, transactions, or decisions – as well as to government research data used as basis for policy development.

Citizens can request information through offline or paper-based platform or through online or the eFOI platform.

As of June 24, 2019, a total of 442 agencies are onboard the FOI program. The figure includes 186 national government agencies, 91 government-owned and controlled corporations, 74 state universities and colleges, and 89 local water districts. (PIA-Iloilo)