MANILA - The public can now have better access to information from agencies under the executive branch with the recent launch of the website on Freedom on Information (FOI).

The information portal may be accessed at www.foi.gov.ph Interested parties may search in the site the information they need.

If they could not find what they need online, they may request for it online, and eventually receive an email about the receipt and status of their request.

When the request has been processed, the user will receive another email, directing them to a specific government website where the information may be accessed.

In the site, the FOI mechanism covers only the following participating agencies:

1. Department of Budget and Management,
2. Department of Finance,
3. Department of Health,
4. Department of Information and Communications Technology,
5. Department of Justice,
6. Department of Transportation,
7. National Archives of the Philippines,
8. Office of the Government Corporate Counsel,
9. Office of the Solicitor General,
10. PhilHealth
11. Philippine National Police,
12. Philippine Statistics Authority,
13. Presidential Commission on Good Government,
14. Presidential Communications Operations Office,
15. Public Attorneys Office

Presidential Communications Office Assistant Secretary Kris Ablan told Mornings@ANC Friday that they are creating an inter-agency committee to oversee FOI and OpenData and are setting up a periodic updating of the information.

He noted, FOI and OpenData go hand in hand because per their observation from other countries, "if you go through the process of FOI for each question, you go to the point where you're over-burdening our frontliners already."

"People might be asking the same questions. So what's going to happen is we're going to adapt a "Disclose to one, disclose to all" and that's where Open Data comes in," he said.

"On the website, you'll be able to browse the agencies and browse the request because for all you know, another person has already asked it and that agency has already answered it," he added.

Ablan argued, the FOI is "not just for the academe, researchers, journalists, media," but benefits the general public.

"Families use information from government to determine where to relocate, to determine where to put their children to school by asking the statistics in the Department of Education or the statistics in the PNP or the DILG," he said.

With the FOI, Ablan also noted, indigents would also be able to ask the government what subsidies and assistance they should expect from them.

"With freedom of information, you’re empowering citizens to know that information because you know, we have 7,000 islands, it’s very difficult to disseminate that information," he said.

Under President Rodrigo Duterte's Executive Order No. 2, the agencies would have 15 working days to process the requests, but may ask for an extension of 20 more working days for more complex requests.

Ablan added, there are nine exemptions to the President's EO, including information dealing with privacy and national security, information covered by executive privilege, and other information whose release is prohibited by other laws.

• READ: Palace lists nine exceptions to FOI executive order

He also asserted, the EO was meant to convince Congress to pass the FOI bill.

"The president is actually confident that the bill will be enacted into law. He actually signed this Executive Order to more or less try to convince the Congress not to worry about giving access to information," he said.

"It's the right of the people under the Constitution and hopefully they pass it before the end of the the first half," he added.