PPA now FOI compliant, bags award

DECEMBER 15, 2017, MANILA—The Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) is now fully-compliant with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) reinforcing its earlier commitment to be fully transparent to the public.

The PPA has likewise received a recognition from the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), one of only three Government Owned and Controlled Corporations recognized by the PCOO along with the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan (AFAB) and the National Housing Authority (NHA).

PPA General Manager Jay Daniel R. Santiago said the full compliance with the FOI and the recognition received by the PPA is a testament of the hardwork of the agency to bring it closer to the people.

“This compliance and this award underscore the commitment of the Port Authority to open all its processes to public scrutiny,” Santiago said.

“Similarly, the PPA will continue to strive for excellence anchored on transparency and reliability in support to the overall thrust of the current administration of clean governance,” Santiago stressed.

In order to be fully responsive to all requests, PPA has its FOI internal database monitoring system and has included in the preparation of its programs the following initiatives to provide a more efficient FOI requests’ management, which include introduction of enhancements to its internal FOI monitoring system, compliant with the required FOI registry format; provision of a FOI kiosk to cater the walk-in requesting parties; and PPA-wide orientation seminar to fully inform the employees and document custodians on the Freedom of Information and the PPA FOI Agency Manual.

The PPA full compliance recognition, on the other hand, will be good for one year and will undergo another audit next year.

The FOI is the government’s response to the call for transparency and full public disclosure of information. FOI is a government mechanism, which allows Filipino citizens to request any information about government transactions and operations, provided that it shall not put into jeopardy privacy and matters of national security.

The FOI mechanism for the Executive Branch is enabled via Executive Order No. 2, series of 2016.

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