MANILA, Philippines — The junking of the new franchise bid of ABS-CBN by a panel of the House of Representatives on Friday is “reminiscent of the dark pages in the history of Philippine press in 1972.”
This was how Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon saw the development at the lower chamber, shortly after the House committee on legislative franchises denied the network’s application for franchise for another 25 years.
“I am deeply saddened by this episode in the history of our nation. It is reminiscent of the dark pages in the history of Philippine press in 1972,” Drilon said in a statement.
“Democracy thrives when there is free press and when journalists can exercise complete freedom to do their mandate of reporting facts without fear. But with what happened to ABS-CBN, it has shown that the sword of Damocles can be unleashed any time,” he added.
Drilon said that ABS-CBN’s only fault was it “stepped on some powerful political toes, hence the sword has been unleashed on it.”
“The sword of Damocles will continue to hang perilously over other media networks. Both the legislators and the executive can wield the sword at their whim and caprice. This is when democracy starts to weaken,” he said.
No doubt, he said, ABS-CBN as an institution can survive this episode, noting that it has been through this before during martial law in 1972.
Drilon said he remained confident that the network can “face this difficult trial once more,” but he could not say the same for its employees, who he said are the “real casualties” of this “unfortunate and politically-charged event.”
“The 11,000 workers losing jobs next month have families to feed, rent and mortgages to pay and children to send to schools. They will suffer the consequences of the decision of the House of Representatives,” Drilon pointed out.
He said this could have been avoided had the House granted the franchise renewal of the network.
“Sad to say, ABS-CBN will have to wait until 2022 when the new Congress is elected to apply again for the renewal of its franchise,” Drilon said.
To prevent this from happening in the future, Drilon urged the immediate passage of his Senate Bill No. 1530, which seeks the non-expiration of a franchise whose renewal has been filed and remained pending in Congress.
ABS-CBN’s franchise expired last May 4.