One less of ’em
Sing no sad songs, shed no tear. ABS-CBN simply had it coming.
Grieve instead for the thousands of the network’s employees who lost their jobs, the small non-regular workforce who have just joined the ranks of the unemployed. They will have a hard time getting back into the groove.
While supporters and backers continue to harp on the curtailment of press freedom in the non-renewal of the ABS-CBN franchise, we believe it was simply a case of the past catching up with the broadcast giant. When media is used, however, to suit the interests of its owners, that is not press freedom.
After sowing the seeds of political opportunism in the over 50 years of its existence, ABS-CBN took it flush on the chin from lawmakers determined to put it to sleep. The non-renewal — by a historic landslide vote of the House Committee on Legislative Franchises — officially put the mighty Lopez clan on the sledgehammer.
That’s one less oligarchic family in our midst. There are many more of them in this country where political and economic power is concentrated in a small elite group. And it is a sad commentary that whenever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is what we call an oligarchy. That has been the problem with this nation ever since.
Governance is characterized by political favors in exchange for support. This system was sustained by an entrenched kinship system and external aid, so much so that, try as he would want to, President Duterte, or any other chief executive for that matter, has work cut out for him against the powerful and historically entrenched oligarchy. It has, for all intents and purposes, shaped the government to serve their own interests.
The Lopezes are the only family that has stayed on the fringes of power since 1946 when President Manuel Roxas ascended the Presidency. No less than the late Ninoy Aquino Jr. described the Lopezes as kingmakers and manipulators of political balances after that.
“When they abandoned (Elpidio) Quirino and the Liberal Party in the 1950s, there was a stampede out. When they joined the Magsaysay bandwagon in the 1960s, they forced (Carlos) Garcia down,” the martyred senator once said.
When Diosdado Macapagal took over Malacañang, it was said that the Lopezes were the ones who brought a crisis of major proportion against him causing his downfall in the elections of 1965, which Ferdinand Marcos won.
According to those in the know, it was the Lopezes who financed Marcos against Senate President Amang Rodriguez to win the support of the Senate.
So powerful was the Lopez media empire that only Marcos’ martial law was able to stop it in its tracks. The late strongman made a deft maneuver that put the Lopezes on his side by offering Fernando
Lopez to be his running mate.
Although allegations of political meddling did not figure prominently in the factors that resulted to the eventual franchise rejection, the report of the technical working group delved lengthily on charges the broadcast network favored certain candidates during the 2016 elections.
What makes the Lopezes so deadly?
In a meticulously researched PhD dissertation by a certain Joseph Scalice, submitted as a requirement for his doctorate at the University of California in Berkeley, he explained it thus:
“One: their control of media. They have one of the best radio and TV networks in the country. Two: their political base. Having been in power since 1945, they have many people beholden to them, unknown numbers of people in the bureaucracy, in the judiciary, in the political field. Faceless at this moment; but when the chips are down, these people surface.
Third: their reckless use of funds. When they fight, they put in everything. So, groups of politicians gravitate around them. Fourth: the Lopezes are known to fight to the end. Other people feel inhibited about joining them, for fear they will abandon you in mid-fight. Not the Lopezes.”
So, have we seen the last of them with this landmark decision?
Don’t count on it. The Lopezes would not take this setback sitting down. It has been the hallmark of this clan. Remember when Geny Lopez had to rebuild the network from the ashes of martial rule? He was that determined to put ABS-CBN’s old glory back even if it meant scraping the bottom of the barrel.
And you know what that means.
“So,
have we seen the last of them with this landmark decision? Don’t count on it. The Lopezes would not take this setback sitting down. “We believe it was simply a case of the past catching up with the broadcast giant.