Despite the absence of public hearings, the New Progressive Party delegation in the Senate voted in favor of the bill, introducing last-minute amendments that had neither been disclosed nor discussed beforehand.
As the Senate prepared to vote on the measure, members of the press and civil society warned that it would weaken Puerto Ricans’ right to know how their government operates.
The Senate announced late Friday that this week it will bring to a vote a bill that threatens the right to know for all of us who live in Puerto Rico.
Transparency has become a worn-out slogan, invoked by politicians to create the illusion of openness and accountability. Even worse, it has been weaponized to undermine the value of diversity in a distorted version of reality, as in the Trump regime’s case. In practice, politicians and officials say one thing and do another, or announce “achievements” while concealing the how and why to avoid public scrutiny.
To counter the propaganda of public officials and political leaders, Puerto Rican attorney Luis José Torres Asencio used a recent keynote address to urge both the press and the general public to exercise their right to access information more frequently and with greater urgency.
Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism has had to go to court three times in the past five years for the DRNA to hand over public documents.
A new federal financial transparency law requires identifying who controls each entity, including limited liability companies, or LLCs. However, the data, which the U.S. government says will help curb financial crimes committed through opaque companies, will not be public.
