Countdown: Can ABS-CBN Get A New Franchise In 24 Days?

Eleven members of the House of Representatives – including supporters of President Duterte – have signed Resolution No. 639, urging the committee on legislative franchises headed by Palawan Rep. Franz Alvarez to report out “without further delay” for plenary action the consolidated version of eight bills seeking the renewal of ABS-CBN Corporation’s legislative franchise for another 25 years.

The resolution itself states the possible reason why any proposal to have ABS-CBN’s franchise renewed is not moving: President Duterte’s objection to it.

What’s 11 out of nearly 300 House members? Insiders say most congressmen would rather play safe and keep their hands off the matter rather than catch the ire of the President.

“All of these (eight) bills have not been acted upon by the Committee on Legislative Franchises and no single hearing has been held on these bills before the Congress went on Christmas recess (beginning Dec. 20),” the resolution read.

Congress will resume session on Jan. 20 but will continue only until March 13, ahead of the March 30 expiration of ABS-CBN’s franchise. Lawmakers will go on a Holy Week break from March 14 to May 3.

Like tax measures, legislative franchises must emanate from the House.

Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano earlier gave an assurance that the House would tackle the matter with fairness.

Countdown

 Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay, who filed the resolution to grant the franchise, said “time is of the essence” because the House has only 24 regular session days to tackle the matter.

 Duterte has been openly talking about his beef against ABS-CBN. In April 2017, he accused the network of “swindling” him for not airing the political advertisements he paid for during the 2016 presidential campaign.

 The President repeated his attacks against ABS-CBN on Dec. 30, 2019 and said the owners should just sell the network.

 The eight proposals to renew ABS-CBN’s franchise were filed by Reps. Michaela Violago (House Bill No. 676), Rose Marie “Baby” Arenas (HB 3521), Joy Myra Tambunting (HB 3713), Sol Aragones (HB 3947), Vilma Santos-Recto (HB 4305), Aurelio Gonzales Jr., Johnny Pimentel and Doy Leachon (HB 5608), Rufus Rodriguez (HB 5705) and Josephine Ramirez-Sato (HB 5753).

 Those who signed the resolution were Lagman, Violago, Tambunting, Leachon, Pimentel as well as Reps. Emmanuel Billones, France Castro, Jocelyn Limkaichong, Christopher  “Kit” Belmonte, Carlos Zarate and Eufemia Cullamat.

Right versus privilege

According to Lagman, Duterte’s repeated threats against ABS-CBN due to his personal grievances against the network giant “constitute prior restraint on press freedom in the light of the Chavez ruling” because “the chilling effect of said threats derogates the exercise of press freedom by ABS-CBN and other broadcast outlets desirous of seeking the maintenance as well as the extension of their respective franchises at the proper time.”

Lagman, a lawyer, was referring to the unanimous Supreme Court ruling in the case of former solicitor general Francisco “Frank” Chavez versus the late justice secretary Raul Gonzalez and the National Telecommunications Commission.

In its Feb. 15, 2008 decision, the SC said the warnings of Gonzalez and the NTC for radio and television media not to air the purported wiretapped “Garci tapes” under pain of revocation of their certificates to operate have a “chilling effect” on press freedom and constitute “unconstitutional prior restraint on the exercise of freedom of speech and of the press.”

Lagman described the ruling as a “fitting precedent.”

The “Garci tapes” refer to the wiretapped conversations alleged to be between then Commission on Elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and a woman who sounded like then president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regarding her votes in the 2004 presidential race.

In the same ruling, Lagman cited the SC’s pronouncement: “In this jurisdiction, it is established that freedom of the press is crucial and so inextricably woven into the right to free speech and free expression, that any attempt to restrict it must be met with an examination so critical that only a danger that is clear and present would be allowed to curtail it.”

The SC noted that it had not wavered in its duty to uphold this “cherished freedom” by striking down laws and issuances meant to curtail this right.

“Much has been written on the philosophical basis of press freedom as part of the larger right of free discussion and expression. Its practical importance, though, is more easily grasped. It is the chief source of information on current affairs,” the SC said in its ruling on the Chavez case.

“It is the most pervasive and perhaps most powerful vehicle of opinion on public questions. It is the instrument by which citizens keep their government informed of their needs, their aspirations and their grievances. It is the sharpest weapon in the fight to keep government responsible and efficient. Without a vigilant press, the mistakes of every administration would go uncorrected and its abuses unexposed,” it added.

Lagman said the core essence of the Chavez case is that in the absence of a clear and present danger against the state, no prior restraint on press freedom can be allowed.

He emphasized that the renewal of a TV franchise is “inextricably linked” to the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press, the curtailment of which constitutes a transgression of the Charter.

Lagman called on the House leadership to “uphold and respect the freedom of the press as an indispensable component of the freedom of expression and free speech” by requiring Congressman Alvarez to “act immediately” on the bills.

Lagman argued that even the delay in granting a broadcast franchise is also an “unconstitutional prior restraint on the exercise of freedom of speech and of the press.”

 “Any inordinate delay or arbitrary denial of a franchise renewal emasculates freedom of the press,” he warned.

He also underscored the following:

• A franchise is required for reasonable regulation of the operation of radio and television networks, and is never intended to curtail the freedom of the press.
•  A franchise is not a mere privilege because it ripens to a right once the conditions for its grant are substantially complied with.
• The grant of a congressional franchise to a radio and/or television network does not reduce press freedom to an ordinary privilege subject to the unfettered discretion of the State or to the whims and caprices of officialdom.
• A broadcast franchise is an embodiment of the State’s recognition of press freedom.
• Such a franchise is renewable for another 25 years under existing laws.
• Press freedom is corollary to the people’s right to information, and the decimation of press freedom amounts to the demise of the people’s right to know.
• A free press is vital to a democratic society because it not only guarantees the publication and broadcast of a diversity of voices and opinions, it also holds those in power accountable.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines has criticized the lower chamber for its inaction on ABS-CBN’s franchise as well as Duterte’s call for the conglomerate to just sell the network.

“His statement leaves the network owners, the Lopez family, with a stark choice: sell or lose everything. But sell it to whom and for whose benefit?” the group asked.

“We call on the community of independent journalists and on citizens to band together and protect the free arena of ideas that the closure or forced sale of ABS-CBN would severely weaken. The alternative – the death of freedom of the press and of free expression – is too horrible to contemplate,” the NUJP said.