Schedule to tackle ABS-CBN’s franchise up to House leaders, says solon

MANILA, Philippines — The waiting goes on for the House of Representatives’ action on the pending bills calling for the renewal of ABS-CBN’s legislative franchise. But when will the lower chamber finally deal with the measures?

“To be honest here, it is up to the leadership of Congress – the Speaker, the House committee chair, and our leaders – to decide when to hear it,” according to Isabela Rep. Antonio “Tonypet” Albano, vice-chairperson of the House committee on legislative franchises.

Franchise of the country’s largest broadcasting company is set to lapse on March 30, 2020, or 48 days from today. But as of Tuesday, February 11, the matter has yet to be scheduled for a hearing by House panel.

Currently, there are 11 pending bills in the lower chamber seeking the renewal of ABS-CBN’s franchise.

Albano said the committee is also handling other proposed measures.

“It doesn’t mean that if you filed a petition for us to hear the case right away that the leadership and the House committee on legislative franchises will hear it right away because we do have a schedule also to follow,” Albano told reporters.

Albano, however, assured that the House committee on legislative franchises will tackle ABS-CBN’s franchise even saying that it was among the topics in the committee’s closed-door meetings.

“We assure the public later on that we will hear the case because our chairman and the leadership of the House, in particular, have been closely monitoring the events but we also have a lot of other issues to tackle before we can tackle the ABS-CBN franchise,” Albano said.

“As vice chairman of the committee on franchise, I know for a fact that we are already having closed-door meetings about this especially that the issue has caught up and especially that the deadline is there. But of course we submit to the leadership of the House, the chairperson to be able to hold this committee on franchise nitong (of) ABS-CBN,” he added.

Albano explained the closed-door meetings were being held so that they will not be “pressured by any sides.”

“Remember that it is stated in the Constitution that Congress is the sole prerogative entity that is tackling all the franchises here in the Philippines so this is one of the reasons why we wanted closed-door sessions is that we didn’t want any pressure from anyone in particular so that our decisions will not be biased in the end when we start hearing the cases,” the lawmaker said.

Edited by KGA