Freedom of information advocates found another champion in known social reformer Bishop Broderick Pabillo as the campaign for the ratification of the FOI Bill by the Lower House on May 31 intensifies.

With the Freedom of Information bill hanging in the balance, the Center for Community Journalism and Development is re-posting the Inquirer editorial of February 9 which essentially captures the predicament of meaningful and substantial legislative measures in a Congress preoccupied with partisan concerns. The CCJD urges colleagues, public interest groups and citizens to intensify efforts to have this bill passed by the 14th Congress. Work for its passage started in the 11th Congress or period of 12 years.

The International News Safety Institute urges journalists in the Philippines to resist calls to carry guns following the horrific massacre in Maguindanao. INSI believes that the safety of journalists would not be improved, and in fact probably would be diminished, were they to carry weapons.

“Journalists increasingly are being targeted largely because they have lost, in the eyes of certain elements, their status as neutral observers. If they bear arms they reinforce this misguided belief by placing themselves on one side or another,” said INSI Director Rodney Pinder.

Today is the day that we mark the first month anniversary of the most unspeakable atrocity committed against Filipino journalists together with those who set out to fulfill an electoral right in Maguindanao, a simple enough exercise that turned out to have far-reaching implications for human rights, the rule of law and democracy.
Today, as we stand resolute in shouting “Never again!” we do so with the hope that our call for justice for the Maguindanao massacre victims  and their families does not fall on deaf ears.
Today, even as we note …

Finally, the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act passed Third Reading in the Senate today, (December 14) after three Congresses marked by hard lobbying by various interest groups led by the Access to Information Network (ATIN).
“In the past, the bill was only able to get the nod of the House of Representatives but gets stuck in the Senate.  It is only now that significant strides were achieved with regard to pushing this bill,” said Representative Lorenzo R. Tañada III, the bill’s author in the Lower House.
Tañada emphasized the importance of getting …

Access to Information Key to Fight Corruption
People’s access to information is key in reducing corruption in local and national government, which is now the core issue in the crisis in Maguindanao following the abduction and slaughter of 57 people in the country’s worst election-related violence and the world’s deadliest single attack against journalists.
This was the main message of Red Batario, Center for Community Journalism and Development (CCJD) executive director and Nepomuceno Malaluan, Access to Information Network (ATIN) lead convenor in a live radio discussion December 9 over dzMM’s “Dos por …

Proclamation 1959: Proclaiming a State of Martial Law and suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in the province of Maguindanao except for certain areas.

DON’T KILL FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: WE BEG OUR SENATORS TO ACT ON S.B. 3308 NOW!
Last 9 November, we welcomed with deep appreciation the Senate’s commitment to pass the Freedom of Information Act without delay. We gave our full confidence to their assurance, made through Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, that Senate Bill 3308 will be passed on second reading by November 18, and on third reading by 1 December. This timetable only gives enough time to convene the bicameral conference committee and report back for final approval of the bill …

The brutal, indiscriminate mass murder on Monday in Ampatuan town, in Maguindanao province, raises the ultimate challenge of conscience. It carries the culture of impunity at work in this country to such levels of horror that,  if it remains unpunished for long,  can send the nation into an inexorable descent into absolute dehumanization.

KORONADAL CITY, South Cotabato.–What is now known here as the Ampatuan massacre has wiped out the staff of the five-year-old pioneering vernacular newsweekly Periodico Ini (This Periodical) based in the city and left many news organizations in five towns missing a staff member or two.
Police and military officials said Wednesday the total casualty list has breached the 57th mark, with the recovery of the remains of 10 more victims, three of them journalists.
A list pieced together by CenterLaw from interviews with victims’ families and information provided by local journalists associations show …