Ex-solicitor general urges creation of public institution for gov’t dishonesty

A former solicitor general asserted on Wednesday that the government should create a public institution that would prioritize the problem of “dishonesty” of public officials.

Florin Hilbay proposed to build the Institute for the Integrity of Information that would “counterweight the dishonesty of the public officials,” regulating which information that would be released to the public is false, fake or otherwise.

“We need to protect the value of public information being peddled by public officials,” he said in a seminar titled “F5: Media Law and Social Ethics.”

Hilbay emphasized the exclusion of media on the scope of the proposed public institution since it is regulated by the public trust and their reputation for being credible.

“It will not be interested in the media, which is a private entity. It will not be interested in the freedom of expression of people… so hindi kayo kailangang matakot, you can say whatever it is [that] you want to say,” he said.

He added: “The press exists for money… They have a sacred trust which is to provide credible information but they are private quantities.”

He suggested that the committee members of the proposed public institution should be composed of experts and should not be appointed by the President.

“It should be a committee that is not appointed by the President. [It should be a] committee composed of eminent scholars, media experts, information technology experts,” Hilbay said in an interview with Dapitan Post.

The former solicitor general explained the necessity to protect the value of information through the creation of the Institute for the Integrity of Information.

“You need to have that kind of institute to protect the value of information because if the value of information goes down, the public conversations will go down,” he said.

“That’s very important because the quality for information dictates the direction of our economy, the direction of our government,” he added.

Government as an agent of information

Hilbay highlighted that the government is an agent of disseminating information to the public, as their “principal,” since they are paid by public funds.

“Tayo (ang publiko) yung...masters...tayo dapat yung pinagsisilbihan. Hindi dapat tayo ‘yung minumura. Hindi dapat tayo yung pinagsisinungalingan,” he said.

He emphasized that public officials have the power over government machineries which are used to disseminate information to the public.

“They (public officials) can tag into that network and propagate whatever information they want to propagate,” he said.

Hilbay explained that the public officials act as the information central where the media get their information to report to the public whether it is accurate or not.

He also stated that fake news released by the government would be a problem for it affects the overall aspect of the country.

The seminar was organized by the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Legal Management Society held at the university.