Solon: ABS-CBN can still file an MR
ASENIOR lawmaker on Sunday said the ABS-CBN Corp., as a private company, can still file a motion for reconsideration for its franchise application before the House Committee on Legislative Franchises.
Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, chairman of the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments, said the network can still appeal the panel’s technical working group’s (TWG) findings on issues of its franchise.
Citing the findings and recommendation of the TWG, the House Committee on Legislative Franchises last Friday approved the resolution denying the 25year franchise application of the ABS-CBN Corp.
The resolution was recommended by two members of a three-person TWG that summarized six key issues taken up in deliberations in a dozen hearings called by the committee on their application to renew their franchise. The third member, Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo, dissented and joined 10 others in voting to grant the network’s franchise application.
The TWG opted not to rule on the matter of “biased reporting” or the network’s alleged meddling in politics, raised by certain lawmakers. The TWG acknowledged that, “The principles of press freedom, fair comment, and self-regulation of media militate against any attempt at such ruling.”
In a Teleradyo interview Sunday, Rodriguez said “As a private bill, as an applicant to Congress, as a private corporation, then, it has all the right to be able to ask for a motion for reconsideration.”
Rodriguez, citing the legislative franchise panel chairman Franz Alvarez, said the committee can consider the appeal of the ABSCBN Corp.
The lawmaker said TWG’S recommendation to deny the franchise application was not even unanimous.
“One member [Marikina City’s Quimbo] dissented. it’s not even a unanimous decision, so paving the way really for a motion for reconsideration,” he said.
“In terms of the possibility in Congress right now, unless you have a motion for reconsideration, there is no more, any other way to have it back to the committee and then go to the plenary,” he said.
For his part, Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano defended the decision of the Committee on Legislative Franchises, saying it has conducted a fair, impartial, thorough, and comprehensive hearing on the franchise application of the Lopez-owned ABS-CBN Corp.
Also, Cayetano assured the public that the final resolution was not arrived at by the committee without serious consideration as to the overall impact it will have on the nation.
Meanwhile, the Makabayan bloc on Sunday condemned the denial of the franchise renewal of ABSCBN, saying “this is a clear attack on press freedom and the people’s right to information.”
“Amid unprecedent unemployment brought about by the Covid-19 crisis, Duterte and his allies chose to sentence to hunger and death to the more than 11,000 employees and workers, along with their families, of the media giant,” the bloc said in a statement.
“The majority in the House Committee on Legislative Franchises chose to ignore the objective facts that emerged over the course of 12 hearings, along with categorical statements by various government agencies that ABSCBN violated neither the terms of their franchise nor other laws,” it added.
The Makabayan Bloc in the House of Representatives consists of Bayan Muna Reps. Carlos Isagani Zarate, Eufemia Cullamat, and Ferdinand Gaite, Act-teachers Rep. France Castro, Gabriela Women’s Rep. Arlene Brosas, and Kabataan Party-list Rep. Sarah Elago.
Senators hit vote displacing 11K workers
EARLIER, senators weighed in on the House committee vote to reject the giant network’s application on Friday, throwing out 11,000 workers in the middle of an economically crippling pandemic.
“I share the hurt and heartbreak in every Filipino home, and the tears of more than 11,000 workers who were denied of hope,” said Sen. Nancy Binay in a statement, after the House franchises committee voted 70-11, with one abstention and two inhibitions, to reject the grant of a franchise to the Lopez-led network.
“I can only ask our leaders what their plans are for the thousands of workers who have lost their jobs. [In these times, people need more than ever to feel their government cares for them],” added Binay, who two days before the vote had exhorted House of Representatives members to act according to conscience on a matter that she said was “bigger than ourselves” because it involved upholding press freedom in a democracy.
Binay had words of comfort for the network, which President Duterte had publicly called out, in a speech in December 2019, where he vowed he will “see to it” that “you’re out” in 2020, when the franchise expires.
Binay said: “To the ABS-CBN Family, what hurts you today will make you even stronger tomorrow. The die may have been cast, but it’s never the end.”
‘Pandemic of intolerance’ SEN. Grace Poe, on learning about the House committee decision, rued that “the pandemic of intolerance has claimed another victim.”
Poe, who chairs the Senate counterpart Committee on Public Services tasked to review franchises, lamented that the House action, if not reversed, means that “thousands of breadwinners will lose their jobs, and millions [of viewers] their source of entertainment and information.”
Poe pointed out that “ABS-CBN is far from a perfect organization, and has admitted to its many failings. But in its balance sheet of accomplishments, the good it had done for our people are valuable.”
The senator suggested that “the correct—and constitutional—response is to allow it to remedy them, the same chance extended to thousands of franchise applicants.” She explained this is so “because a media organization that occasionally commits mistakes is in the nation’s interest than one that is permanently muzzled.”
Senate Minority Leader Frank Drilon warned that “the sword of Damocles will continue to hang perilously
over other media networks,” noting that “both the legislators and the executive can wield the sword at their whim and caprice. This is when democracy starts to weaken.”
In the face of a global pandemic, Drilon stressed the people “need more access to information” and the ABS-CBN complements other stations in providing “timely and accurate reportage even in the farthest locality unreachable to others, even to the government.”
Drilon earlier filed a resolution to extend the ABS-CBN until December of 2022 but the Senate, he said, can no longer act on it and other bills seeking to renew the franchise of ABS-CBN due to Constitutional limitations. Angara: Agencies cleared network
SEN. Sonny Angara noted how, in the 12 hearings conducted by the committee, “many government agencies attested that ABS-CBN has no violations, contrary to what others are saying.”
He warned that the economic fallout will hit not just the media or broadcasting industry where ABSCBN is a leader, but also the larger economy—advertising and creative industries or pursuits-producing, editing, music scoring, acting, directing, set design, among others.
Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan called the decision a “death sentence” that dooms not just big business but also the livelihood of 11,000 workers and their families.
Pangilinan noted the folly of “taking away the jobs of 11,000 people” during a pandemic that has displaced 7 million workers.