Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama shows the signed copy of the City’s FOI Ordinance./Photo screen grabbed from Cebu City PIO’s FB Live via Wenilyn B. Sabalo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama signed, on Thursday, July 28, 2022, the Freedom of Information (FOI) Ordinance of 2019 entitled “An Ordinance Operationalizing Freedom of Information in the City Government of Cebu and providing guidelines, thereof.”
Rama said he signed the Ordinance as it highlighted processes on how to access public information.
The mayor also said this was timely, especially, that a few months from now, Cebu would again celebrate Press Freedom Week.
The Press Freedom Week is celebrated in Cebu every September annually.
The 15th Sangguniang Panlungsod passed the ordinance authored by former Cebu City Councilor and now Cebu City-South District Rep. Eduardo Rama, Jr. last June 2022.
The ordinance, which is geared to improve the transparency of public transactions in the city government, covers all Cebu City government offices.
Under the FOI ordinance, there shall be a legal presumption in favor of access to information, public records, or official records.
“No request for information shall be denied unless it clearly falls under any of the exceptions in the inventory of FOI exceptions. The City Government of Cebu shall adopt the ‘disclose to one, disclose to all’ policy for the information requested through this Ordinance and shall exercise proactive disclosure of information not subject to the exceptions,” reads a portion of the ordinance.
The ordinance also requires that each department and office of the city must have an FOI receiving officer that shall receive, screen, and upon approval of the department head, release the necessary documents.
Under the ordinance, a government employee who repeatedly violates the FOI ordinance may be fired from their position.
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