“It is universally held in democratic societies that sovereignty resides in the people and all governmental authority emanates from them. Adequate accurate information should therefore flow between the people and the government, among groupings of people and among individual citizens, in order to forge and certify the people’s sovereign democratic will on general and specific policy matters and in order to make possible their mobilization and synergy. The Culture of Truth is a crucial requisite in democratic governance, in the sustainable preservation of law and order, and even in living collectively with a modicum of human decency, human dignity and human harmony.”

And we also emphasized in the same Declaration “the right of the people to information on matters of public concern shall be recognized” under Section 7, Art. III of Bill of Rights. So should members of Congress have any legitimate reason to waive such right to know, considering that they are the ones directly legislating? Should these legislators have any legitimate reason not to consider government-commissioned studies directly relevant to the bill under consideration seeking that the BNPP  be operated?

The CCTI now dares to assert that Congress of the Philippines, along with each of the chambers and committees thereof, has the power to compel any instrumentality of the Republic to make available to it any and all information that has reasonable bearing on any bill being subjected to its consideration, so as to dignify the logic of all hearings any which chamber or committee may hold “in aid of legislation.” In particular the House of Representatives, being Constitutionally endowed with the “power of the purse,” has the requisite power to compel full explanation of any amount sought in any bill under consideration for the release from the people’s tax money for any expense. For this reason, we find it obviously an affront on this logic that the members of the House appropriations committee have already agreed to earmark the amount of PhP100 million partially for the contemplated repair and remedy of some of the defects of the BNPP without compelling the availability of the government-commissioned documents on the alleged thousands of defects of this plant, rendering an infirm, mysteriously-originated, judgment that such amount would be enough to render the plant safe for commissioning and operation as contemplated in Rep. Mark Cojuangco’s House Bill 4631.