House passes 3 franchise bills; starts deliberations on ABS-CBN renewal

The House of Representatives on Tuesday approved bills renewing the franchises of two broadcasting companies and one telecommunications firm—the same day that the House started deliberations on pending bills seeking ABS-CBN's franchise renewal.

The renewed franchises, which were all approved unanimously, were in House Bills 6254, 6256 and 6371 and granted a 25-year franchise to operate to FBS Radio Network, Inc., Century Communications Marketing Center, and Bayan Telecommunications, Inc.

Some 244 lawmakers voted in favor of House Bill 6254, while 248 lawmakers approved House Bills 6256 and House Bill 6371.

Both House Bills 6254 and 6256, which granted franchises to broadcast networks similar to ABS-CBN, mandated the grantee to undertake the following measures:

• provide free adequate public service time which is reasonable and sufficient to enable the government, through the broadcasting  stations or facilities of  the grantee, to reach the pertinent populations or portions thereof, on important  public issues and relay important  public announcements and warnings concerning public emergencies and calamities, as necessity, urgency or law may require;
• provide at all times sound and balanced programming;
• promote public participation;
• assist in the functions of public information and education;
• conform to the ethics of honest enterprise;
• promote audience sensibility and empowerment including closed captioning;
• not to use its stations or facilities for the broadcasting of obscene or indecent language, speech, acts, or scenes;
• not to use its stations or facilities for the dissemination  of deliberately false information or willful misrepresentation to the detriment of the public interest; and
• not to use its stations or facilities to incite, encourage, or assist in subversive or treasonable acts.

The same bills granting the broadcast networks their franchises also reserved a special right given to the President of the Philippines to:

• temporarily take over and operate the stations or facilities of the grantee;
• temporarily suspend the operation of any station or facility in the interest of public safety, security and public welfare; or
• authorize the temporary use and operation thereof by any agency of the government, upon due compensation to the grantee, for the use of stations or facilities during the period when these shall be so operated in times of war, rebellion, public peril, calamity, emergency, disaster, or disturbance of peace and order.

The 11 pending bills seeking ABS-CBN's franchise renewal, on the other hand, were left untouched by the House as these were filed in August 2019, with the first hearing on the matter conducted by the House Committee on Legislative Franchises on Tuesday-March 10. — DVM, GMA News

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/729137/house-passes-3-franchise-bills-starts-deliberations-on-abs-cbn-renewal/story/