Freedom of exemptions

 MOST EXEMPTIONS, least information.

Indeed, with its 166 exemptions, is there still anything left of substance, if not of consequence, to President Duterte’s executive order on Freedom of Information in the Executive Branch?

“Freedom of Exemptions.” So National Union of Journalists secretary-general Dabet Panelo called – so aptly – the administration’s much-hyped FOI in an ABS-CBN interview with Karen Davila.

More impact on the people than on the media, Panelo lamented of Duterte’s FOI though, given in-depth research, investigation and vetting integral in media procedure at getting at the news.

Said Panelo: "The FOI is actually for the people because we will do our job anyway. The people, this is their weapon. Pag pumunta sila sa barangay, bakit walang gamot sa barangay? Bakit walang gamot, bakit walang paracetamol? Nasaan ang listahan? Bakit naubos? Bakit walang nebulizer? Nasaan ang gastos? 'Yun 'yun eh."

Yeah, and the people have the elemental right to know what government is doing or not doing for them and why.       

“Precisely in the public interest.” So the erudite Vergel Santos, chair of the board of trustees of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, said of the listed exemptions in the FOI. Also in the same interview with Davila.

"The more general problem is that every exception necessarily narrows the freedom," Santos lamenting the curtailment of what the measure professes to open. 

Santos expressed no surprise in the FOI unacted in the House and the Senate "because the potential target of FOI are members of Congress." And segued to the President.

"There’s so many self-contradictory things about the President. He tells you he’s a populist leader…This falls perfectly into the sort of character that he is. He is ruling with an iron fist." Santos calling the spade a shovel there.

Seeing a national peril in President Duterte’s “soaring popularity rate” leading “people to believe everything that he says."

Yeah, how can President Duterte, with his 91 percent – now said to be 97 percent – across the nation approval rating can ever be wrong?

Believe. As his legions of lemmings do.

Or perish. Perhaps with a cardboard saying “Anti-Duterte. ‘Wag tularan.”  

Outrageous? Yes. Outlandish? Think again.

Observed Santos: “We are now surrendering to the idea that every issue in this country should be decided by the numerical majority.”

Yeah, as in the 16 million voters who went for Duterte believing themselves the majority rather than a simple plurality.

Yeah, as in the congressmen and senators of varied colors – the yellows and reds included – coalescing with Duterte’s handpicked heads for both Houses, who in the preceding regime were but by their lonesome sorry selves.

Indeed, the rightness and righteousness of everything Duterte now finding rightful ground there. Hence, the wrongness of everything not Duterte. 

Santos, en punto: “So this is our point: Democracy has its own checks when it comes to these things."

As in the protection of the right of the minority against the tyranny of the bully, in the silence of the majority.

An FOI that is truly free, there. Not one with the exemptions making the rule. 

Or, am I just being biased? Having written this after watching and reading “bias media” ABS-CBN?

Shucks. My own FOI – freedom of interpretation.