The much-criticized right of reply bill (RORB) will be resurrected as a quid pro quo for the passage of the highly-popular freedom of information (FOI) bill that failed to the scrutiny of the House of Representatives, Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante revealed Sunday.

Abante, chairman of the House Committee on Public Information, said it was the Lower House’s failure to pass the RORB that gave some of his colleagues the reason not to attend the Friday session when the bicameral conference committee on the FOI measure was scheduled for ratification.

The veteran solon claimed that although principal authors of the RORB bill will no longer grace the 15th Congress, there will still be backers of the measure who will make its approval a quid pro quo for the passage of the FOI measure.

The RORB which requires media to give any person subjected to critical article to respond and be given the same time and space where the article was published or broadcast, was principally authored by Rep. Monico Puentevella, who ran but lost a mayoralty seat in Bacolod City.

Unlike the FOI, the RORB has been rejected by leaders of Philippine media who believe that the bill constitutes curtailment of freedom of the press and an act of prior censorship.

The Senate counterpart of RORB had been passed but congressmen failed to vote on it when presented last March for second reading due to time constraints.

Last Friday, the FOI bill was presented for ratification in the Lower House but lack of quorum spoiled the move.

Much of the blame was pinned by Abante to Speaker Prospero Nograles who allegedly failed in his role to become a “good shepherd” who was tasked to ensure the attendance of all congressmen in last Friday’s session.

With only 128 congressmen present, the Friday session was adjourned due to lack of quorum. A quorum in the Lower House requires the presence of at least 135 congressmen.

“For the speaker to claim that the bill would never have seen the light of day without his support is unconvincing and frustrating. True and honest support would be shepherding the bill until its ratification which the speaker failed to do,” ABante said.

Nograles, on the other hand, debunked claims that the non-ratification of the Freedom of Information bill was premeditated and “scripted”.

On Sunday, proponents of FoI bill expressed conflicting views on its possible passage under the next administration of apparent President-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

While Quezon Rep. Lorenzo Tañada is confident that the bill would eventually see the light in the next administration, Akbayan partylist Rep. Walden Bello find it difficult to say.

Tañada, a close ally of Aquino, said he is confident that the bill would make it during the Aquino administration because the next president would fully support it.

“He (Aquino) has made it known to me that if it does not pass the 14th Congress, he is willing to support it,” Tañada said of Aquino.

But Bello said the bill might face a pretty pass in the House of Representatives where President Arroyo would be sitting to represent the 2nd Distric of Pampanga at the end of her term in Malacañang.

“This was sabotaged by Malacañang. I feel that this was … an event scripted by the executive department and the House leadership,” Bello said.

As such, he said, proponents of the bill should not be too confident that the bill would pass during the Aquino administration.

If passed within the first 100 days of an Aquino administration, the FOI will give meaning to his forceful anti-corruption stance, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said Sunday.

The revival of the bill by the new Congress will also “promote absolute transparency, reinforce public accountability and repel malfeasance in government,’’ the largest labor group in the country said.

“Corruption is anti-labor. It breeds unfair and wrongful competition, blows out investments and destroys jobs. We definitely want Mr. Aquino to win the war on corruption," Ernesto Herrera, TUCP secretary general said in a statement.

Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, chairman of the National Secretariat for Social Action Justice and Peace of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said the non-passage of the bill only goes to show that the lawmakers failed to measure up to the challenge of putting ahead of their own the public interest that the occasion called for.

“The failure of Congress to pass the Freedom of Information bill is a shameless betrayal,” Pabillo said in an article posted on the CBCP website.

For its part, the Palace said that the Arroyo administration was not remiss in endorsing the proposed FOI in Congress and still yearns for its passage in the near future.

Deputy Presidential Spokesman Rogelio Peyuan denied the Palace was involved in the botched passage of the bill that allows greater public access to government records in Congress last Friday.

Peyuan said they are actually “disappointed” over the non-passage of the information bill due to lack of quorum in the Lower House. (Ben R. Rosario, Gabriel S. Mabutas, Shianee Mamanglu, Leslie Ann G. Aquino, and Genalyn Kabiling)