The Duterte administration made headway in its efforts towards transparency with a 36 percent compliance to nearly 5,000 requests for government data based on the Freedom of Information (FoI) executive order (EO) in 11 months, according to the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO).

Signed by President Rodrigo Duterte on 23 July 2016, the FoI EO aims to uphold the constitutional right of Filipinos to information on matters of public concern within the Executive branch.

The EO empowers citizens to make a formal request to get public information, except in sensitive areas affecting national security.

Of the 4,964 electronic FoI appeals as of 30 June, 1,771 were listed as successful or in which agencies provided all the information asked while 1,749 remained pending according to the mid-year report of the Freedom of Information-Project Management Office (FoI-PMO), an agency under PCOO.

The PCOO body said 1,324 requests were considered invalid or those which are not covered by the FoI order or were among cases covered by exceptions under the order.

As of 30 June, a mere 120 requests were considered closed which meant these required clarifications or no response to it was made within 60 days as required under the FoI order.

The report added all of the189 national government agencies (NGA) are now fully compliant with the FoI order.

Presidential Communications Assistant Secretary for Policy and Special Concerns Kristian Ablan, also the director of FoI-PMO, said all agencies had submitted their respective FoI manuals.

Ablan said in the one year and six months of implementation of the FoI program, the government has focused on NGA resulting in the 100-percent compliance rate.

The next focus would be government offices and companies that have yet to comply with the requirement under the EO for the submission of FoI manuals.

Ablan said 83 out of 120 government-owned and controlled corporations or 68 percent, have complied with the FoI rules.

Ninety-nine out of 113 state universities and colleges are now compliant or 88 percent, while 175 of all 500 local water districts nationwide or 35 percent, have so far complied with the FoI law.

“FoI tries to rebuild the foundation of trust between citizens and government,” Ablan said. “If government allows itself to be open and vulnerable, then the citizens will be more trusting.”

Mr. Duterte said the FoI is a key component of his administration’s reforms and initiatives for transparency, accountability and citizen participation in governance.

The FoI is also deemed by the government as a means to counter the so-called “fake news.”

“It should be the collective effort of all stakeholders to educate our people to discern fake from real news to minimize, if not eliminate, the spread of false information,” PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar said.

Mr. Duterte has designated PCOO as the lead agency in the implementation of the FoI program in the Executive branch.

“There is so much disinformation you see on social media, on TV, on the broadsheets and on the radio. How we are going to combat fake news? The answer to that is Freedom of Information,” Ablan added.

Ablan said FoI has been gaining success in addressing the complaints and queries of the people to the Executive branch of the government.

“We do have proof that FoI is successful as a tool for citizens’ access to information,” Ablan said.

“In our survey, we found that less than 30 percent of the information we post on our website is downloaded by our citizens,” he added.

Based on the FoI-PMO website, family income and expenditures of government officials were the most sought information by the public followed by census on population and housing and demographics from the Philippine Statistics Authority.

FoI requests were also made on the budget allocation of every government project and offices, as well as the internal revenue allotment of each local government units.

The National Economic Development Authority’s regional development plan has the most number of queries as well as the country’s economic reforms.