MMSU is one of the few state universities and colleges (SUCs) in the country that complied with the Freedom of Information (FOI) program of the government.

The Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) monitored the compliance of the SUCs in the program through the FOI reports - information inventory, registry, and summary - that they submitted in 2017 and 2018.

The information inventory includes documents that can be disclosed in public, within the agency, or to certain people, while the FOI registry is a log of all requests received and acted upon by the concerned agency. 

"Based on our FOI report, we already processed a total of 88 requests in 2017 and 74 requests in 2018," said Prof. Jeanette Dials, the FOI committee chair and acting director of MMSU's Office for Strategic Communication.

Mandated through Executive Order No. 2, s. 2016, the FOI program is a landmark policy of President Duterte's administration which upholds the constitutional right of the people to information on matters of public concern.

Information from the government can be requested using standard and electronic (eFOI Portal) platforms. Simple FOI request takes 15 working days while a complex request takes an additional 20 working days, amounting to 35.

To ensure its implementation, the FOI-Program Management Office (PMO), an attached agency of the PCOO, instructed all government offices under the Executive Branch to submit the agency's information inventory, FOI registry and summary. 

The compliance of SUCs to FOI were disclosed during the Compliance Consultation and Workshop for Luzon SUCs conducted by the PCOO at the Hotel Elizabeth in Baguio City last November 18. Prof. Dials and this writer represented MMSU in the workshop. 

The PCOO staff discussed the FOI program, provisions of the FOI manual, and 2019 Performance-Based Bonus compliance of SUCs. They also taugh the partipants on the use of electronic FOI portal and the assessment tool.

Speakers from PCOO were Atty. Tristan A. de Guzman, chief for Policy, Planning and Support Division; Ma. Danica A. Orcullo, Compliance Monitoring Officer; Martin Ceneta, Information Technology lead; and Eden Darlene A. Mendoza, Chief of Compliance Monitoring Division.