PALACE WELCOMES PROTEST CALLING FOR PRESS FREEDOM
MALACAÑANG has welcomed a scheduled “Black Friday” protest that calls for defending press freedom in the Philippines.
Palace spokesman Harry Roque was referring to the protest organized by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines four days after the state-run Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ordered the closure of online news organization Rappler for allegedly violating the constitutional ban on having foreigners as owners of a media entity.
“This [ holding of the protest] is a testament that freedom is alive and democracy is alive in the Philippines. The Palace position on the matter remains clear and consistent: We allow public displays of constructive criticism as part of full exercise of the protesters’ rights to express their grievances,” Roque, a lawyer, said in a statement.
He assured the public that the government will
“Authorities, as a matter of standard operating procedure, will observe maximum tolerance and respect the protesters’ right to peaceful assembly,” Roque said.
Veteran journalist Maria Ressa, who also serves that Rappler is 100 percent Filipino- owned because Pierre Omidyar does not enjoy voting rights in the Rappler board and, thus, does not own Rappler.
Ressa has also claimed that the SEC decision is a form of political harassment and curtailment of press freedom.
President Rodrigo Duterte denied having a hand in Rappler’s case, saying it is a matter of being compliant with the Constitution.
On Thursday, Rep. Joselito Atienza of Buhay party-list said the 1987 Constitution should be amended to allow foreigners to own public utilities, including mass media.
The 1987 Constitution prevents foreigners from owning more than 40 percent of public utility services and limits the ownership and management of mass media to Filipino citizens.
“These restrictions are very much outmoded. We will never gain enough foreign direct investment if we are not allowing foreign money to come in. Truth be told, we just are fooling ourselves right now. Foreigners are using dummies [ to infuse capital here], and that is proof that it is time for us to open our doors to foreign investments,” Atienza said.
He noted that allowing foreign ownership of media organizations will infuse the necessarily capital needed to upscale operations and improve working conditions.
“Why should foreigners not be allowed to own media organizations? News is global. We get our news from foreign media organizations. Why are when this could improve media’s operations, enable employers to pay higher salaries to their personnel?” Atienza said.
“A lot of things will be better if we will allow foreign capital to come in,” he added.
Atienza said foreign capital is badly needed to fund infrastructure projects in the country, considering that the Philippines is composed of around 7,100 islands.
“We need infrastructure to make these places accessible, but foreign money is not allowed in transportation projects. If we are just going to wait for the local capital, that would not be enough. We need billions of dollars to realize fundamental infrastructure projects,” the lawmaker, a former mayor of Manila, said in an exclusive interview with TheManilaTimes.
The PLDT, the country’s largest telecommunications company, scored a legal victory back in 2012 when the Supreme Court upheld an SEC memo in favor of PLDT that states that holders of preferred shares of PLDT should not be considered owners since these people do not enjoy voting rights in the PLDT board.
This ruling virtually made PLDT compliant with the constitutional limit of 40 percent ownership for foreigners.
SEC, however, did not issue a memo in favor of Rappler.
Since Rappler is required to secure two- thirds vote of its Philippine Depository Receipts ( PDR) holders or investors including the foreignowned Omidyar Network before it can amend its Articles of Incorporation, the SEC interpreted this as tantamount to giving foreigners control of Rappler, thus violating the Constitution and prompting SEC to revoke Rappler’s license to operate.