Officials and employees from the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) Central and Regional Offices, together with local treasurers, assessors, and assistants, participated in the  orientation webinar on the salient provisions of the Presidential Communications Operations Office’s (PCOO) recently issued Freedom of Information (FOI) Memorandum Circular (MC) Nos. 21-03 on Retention Policy; 21-04 on Anonymization Policy and 21-05 on No Wrong Door Policy, last 18 November 2021 via ZOOM and Facebook Live.

The webinar was conducted in celebration of the BLGF’s 34^th anniversary and in line with its thrust to uphold the people’s constitutional right to freedom of information as operationalized under Executive Order No. 02.

“It is important to be updated on the developments in the operationalization of the constitutional right to freedom of information. The BLGF supports these developments and commits to uphold the right of stakeholders to data privacy”, BLGF Acting Deputy Executive Director Ma. Pamela P. Quizon said in her opening message.

Atty. Joseph Adrian B. Llames, Attorney V of the Policy, Planning, and Support Division of the PCOO, discussed the different rights of data subjects, the application of the retention policy of personal and sensitive information processed in FOI requests, the anonymization of personal and sensitive information, the no wrong door policy, as well as the updated inventory of exceptions to FOI requests.

The panelists, Atty. Menilba M. Nicolas, Director II of the BLGF Legal Service, and Atty. Fredelyn S. Gunay, Chief of the Bureau’s Legal Division, together with PCOO’s Atty. Llames, led the open forum discussion and clarified issues regarding the application of data privacy to local treasury and assessment operations.

As a result of this webinar, the BLGF-FOI manual and processing of FOI requests will be updated and improved.