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Garcia vs Board of Investments

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.

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