The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) bagged the Commitment to Excellence Award, under the Agency Category, for being the Freedom of Information Champion Hall of Famer, conferred by the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO).
The FOI Hall of Fame – Commitment to Excellence Award is given to recipients of the FOI Champion Hall of Fame Award in the previous years to recognize its consistent commitment to excellence in public service in the implementation of the FOI Program.
MMDA Chairman Benhur Abalos accepted the award given by PCOO Undersecretary and FOI Program Director Kristian Ablan at the 2021 FOI Awards held recently at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Cebu City.
“This award is a testimony to the MMDA’s commitment to upholding the people’s constitutionally-mandated right to information, providing them with timely, accurate, and relevant information,” Abalos said in his acceptance speech.
The traffic chief stressed that the FOI is the truest form of public service, with the government performing in accordance with the people’s will.
“Through the FOI, we give people not just their fundamental rights, but also the power which enables them to take part in nation-building.”
“Through the FOI, we give people not just their fundamental rights, but also the power which enables them to take part in nation-building. The FOI also provides the government a channel through which it exercises its responsibility to the people of being transparent and accountable,” the traffic head added.
“Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve given the public access to information.”
“Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve given the public access to information, not just about our mandates, but also on the various government initiatives on pandemic response. We have shared vital statistics and information on vaccination rollout in NCR, as well as policies implemented to further decrease the risk of virus transmission. These are all contributory to the NCR reaching the 93 percent inoculation rate, the very first region to have achieved such a milestone since the COVID-19 vaccination started,” he added.
Further, Abalos praised the agency’s FOI Committee for exerting relentless efforts for the successful implementation of the FOI Program.
” I would like to acknowledge my team, the MMDA FOI Committee, for the successful implementation of the FOI program in our agency,” he said.
Also, the MMDA was awarded as a top-performing and requested agency for the fourth consecutive year, the first government agency to achieve such.
The FOI Awards is an annual event that aims to recognize the remarkable contributions of government offices in the executive branch, including government-owned and controlled corporations, state universities and colleges, and local water districts, to the development and progress of the PCOO’s FOI program.
PCOO is the lead agency in the implementation of President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order No. 2 which operationalizes the Constitutional mandate of the People’s Right to Information.
