Lagman says ‘unnecessary’ to use ABS-CBN frequencies for distance learning

MANILA, Philippines — Albay 1st District Rep. Edcel Lagman said Friday that the proposal to use ABS-CBN’s television and radio frequencies for distance learning is “unnecessary”.

Lagman made the remark in response to Deputy Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte’s resolution, which suggests that the government temporarily use ABS-CBN’s television and radio frequencies for distance learning this coming school year to aid the country’s education system amid the pandemic.

But the Albay lawmaker explained that the government can use television frequencies of PTV-4 and IBC-13 as well as AM and FM radio frequencies in the Philippine Broadcast Service for such a purpose, pointing out that using ABS-CBN’s frequencies can be expensive since towers, transmitters, and allied infrastructures would have to be constructed.

This necessary infrastructures, he also said, would be on top of the requirement of public bidding as well as the need for engineers.

Lagman further raised concerns over time constraints since the coming school year is scheduled to begin on August 24, only a little over a month from now.

“Distance learning should ideally be interactive like the use of the Zoom platform via the internet which does not need the availability of frequencies. The government has an existing free WIFI project which can be used for distance learning,” he said.

“The project is funded by the spectrum users fee collected by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) from telcos with a yearly collection of about P4.0-B. The implementing agency is the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT),” he added.

In his proposal, Villafuerte said the former frequencies used by ABS-CBN will be useful especially in areas not yet reached by digital infrastructures, such as some of the communities in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARRM).

Citing a World Bank report, Villafuerte said the pandemic is causing more than 1.6 billion children and youth to be out of school in 161 countries that comprise around 80 percent of the students in the world.

“Inequality and inaccessibility of opportunities such as those pertaining to internet connectivity and possession of a laptop pose a variety of challenges for teachers and learners,” Villafuerte said.

Villafuerte’s proposal came after 70 lawmakers in the House of Representatives’ legislative franchises committee voted against granting ABS-CBN’s application for a fresh 25-year franchise. Only 11 lawmakers voted in favor of giving the franchise to the broadcasting company.

The network has been off the air since May 5 after its free television and radio operations nationwide were ordered shut by NTC, following the expiration on May 4 of its 25-year franchise – the renewal of which was pending in Congress at the time.

KGA