FARMER Jose Rodito Angeles did not know that he had a right to own the land he has been tilling for ages until someone from a non-government organization told him about the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). At that time in 2001, CARP has been running for 13 years but it took four more years for Angeles, 59, of La Castellana, Negros Occidental to secure the necessary documents to affirm his lawful claim on his land.

TODAY starts a series of mass actions by journalists, workers, students, professionals, business and church leaders, and civil-society groups in their vigorous final push for Congress to ratify the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. But the world waits and watches, too. More than just a Philippine story, the 14-year advocacy of Filipinos for Congress to enact the law has become a serious concern of freedom of information advocates, scholars and members of parliament across the globe.

THE PHILIPPINE PRESS, widely held to be the freest and most rambunctious in Southeast Asia, has no reason to boast and gloat as journalists across the globe observe World Press Freedom Day today.

SIX MONTHS AGO, the PCIJ filed a 19-page pleading with the Supreme Court requesting copies of the statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALN) and personal data sheets (PDS) of the 15 justices of the high tribunal. The pleading caps four years of a testy tug-o-war for copies of the justices’ SALNs between the PCIJ and the high court, the last bulwark of democracy and the arbiter of constitutional questions in the land.