Solons demand House action on ABS-CBN franchise

By Ellson Quismorio

Congressmen criticized on Sunday the supposed plan of the House leadership to let the effectivity of broadcast giant ABS-CBN’s current operating franchise expire before acting on pending bills to renew the franchise for another 25 years.

“We cannot just wash our hands of the bill. That would be tantamount to Congress renouncing its exclusive power to grant legislative franchises,” Buhay Party-List Rep. Lito Atienza said in a statement.

According to him, all 302 members of the House of Representatives should be given a chance to vote on the franchise renewal bills concerning the Lopez-owned network.

“The entire House should openly debate on the bill, and then vote on it. This will allow every member to be heard, and to freely decide on the franchise,” Atienza, a former three-term mayor of Manila, said.

While ABS-CBN’s franchise is set to expire on March 30 this year, the Committee really only has until March 11 to act on the pending measures since Congress will go on summer recess after that. The network has 11,000 employees.

All eyes are on the Committee on Legislative Franchises chaired Palawan 1st district Rep. Franz Alvarez, since the dozen or so bills seeking the franchise renewal have been referred to the panel. So far, it hasn’t calendared a hearing for the particular bills, despite the dwindling clock.

Atienza also rejected as a “pipedream” the claim of some of his colleagues that even without a renewed franchise, ABS-CBN could still operate until March 2022 by obtaining a two-year provisional authority from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).

“That is a fantasy. The NTC will simply say we cannot possibly give you a provisional authority because the chief lawyer of the Republic wants to shut you down,” Atienza said, referring to Solicitor General Jose Calida’s quo warranto petition before the Supreme Court (SC) to forfeit the media network’s existing franchise.

Magdalo Party-List Rep. Manuel Cabochan III said that the time to act on the pending ABS-CBN measures is now.

“Why let the franchise effectivity lapse bago bigyan ng pansin? Trabaho din naman ng Kongreso to look into franchise renewals. Nakita na ang pangangailangan na aksiyonan ito, so sana trabahuhin na lang, wag ipagpaliban (Why let the franchise effectivity lapse before acting on it? It’s also the job of Congress to look into franchise renewals. We’ve seen the need to respond to this, so let’s just work on it instead of delay it),” Cabochan said.

House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano said over the weekend that the chamber could begin tackling the franchise renewal bills in May after the summer recess, or in July, after President Duterte delivers his annual State of the Nation Address (SONA).

Outside the House of Representatives, more groups continued to assail Calida’s quo warranto petition against the giant network, saying it threatened the livelihood of thousands of families.

The Bantay Konsyumer, Kuryente, Kalsada (BK3); CitizenWatch Philippines (CWP); and the Democracy Watch Philippines (DWP) said the Office of the Solicitor General’s (OSG) court action against ABS-CBN “sends a negative message to investors, usurps the mandate of Congress, abuses power to silence the President’s critics, and disregards of the rule of law.”

BK3 said investors might hesitate to conduct business in the Philippines because regulations can change depending on the whim of sitting officials.

While Calida has denied Malacañang’s hand in his move, President Duterte has, on several occasions, publicly attacked ABS-CBN, supposedly for not airing his political advertisements during the 2016 presidential campaign, and threatened to cause the revocation of the network’s franchise.

In 2017, Duterte went on record that he was “willing to shake hands with” so long as the network devoted some air time to the promotion of federalism, which he was pushing at that time.”

According to CWP, the ABS-CBN franchise issue sets a dangerous precedent and is a disturbing trend following the Manila Water and Maynilad consortium agreement controversy.

The group said the issue will “cause a crisis of confidence in our regulatory environment being reckless and unstable.”

https://news.mb.com.ph/2020/02/16/solons-demand-house-action-on-abs-cbn-franchise/