G.R. No. 92024 November 9 1990
FACTS:
The Bataan Petrochemical Corporation (BPC), a Taiwanese
private corporation, applied for registration with the Board of Investments
(BOI) in February 1988 as a new domestic producer of petrochemicals in the
Philippines. It originally specified the province of Bataan as the site for the
proposed investment but later submitted an amended application to change the
site to Batangas. Unhappy with the change of the site, Congressman Enrique
Garcia of the Second District of Bataan requested a copy of BPC’s original and
amended application documents. The BoI denied the request on the basis that the
investors in BPC had declined to give their consent to the release of the
documents requested, and that Article 81 of the Omnibus Investments Code
protects the confidentiality of these documents absent consent to disclose. The
BoI subsequently approved the amended application without holding a second
hearing or publishing notice of the amended application. Garcia filed a
petition before the Supreme Court.
ISSUE: Whether or not the BoI committed grave abuse of discretion in
yielding to the wishes of the investor, national interest notwithstanding.
RULING:
The Court ruled that the BoI violated Garcia’s
Constitutional right to have access to information on matters of public concern
under Article III, Section 7 of the Constitution. The Court found that the
inhabitants of Bataan had an “interest in the establishment of the
petrochemical plant in their midst [that] is actual, real, and vital because it
will affect not only their economic life, but even the air they breathe” The Court also ruled that BPC’s amended
application was in fact a second application that required a new public notice
to be filed and a new hearing to be held.
Although Article 81 of the Omnibus Investments Code provides
that “all applications and their supporting documents filed under this code
shall be confidential and shall not be disclosed to any person, except with the
consent of the applicant,” the Court emphasized that Article 81 provides for
disclosure “on the orders of a court of competent jurisdiction”. The Court
ruled that it had jurisdiction to order disclosure of the application, amended
application, and supporting documents filed with the BOI under Article 81, with
certain exceptions.
The Court went on to note that despite the right to access
information, “the Constitution does not open every door to any and all
information” because “the law may exempt certain types of information from
public scrutiny”. Thus it excluded “the trade secrets and confidential,
commercial, and financial information of the applicant BPC, and matters
affecting national security” from its order. The Court did not provide a test
for what information is excluded from the Constitutional privilege to access
public information, nor did it specify the kinds of information that BPC could
withhold under its ruling.
