This morning Solicitor General Jose Calida filed a quo warranto petition at the Supreme Court to nullify the franchises of ABS-CBN and ABS-CBN Convergence, Inc “as they are unlawfully exercising their legislative franchises.”
It would look like the final nail in the coffin of ABS-CBN’s franchise renewal. That is if we consider that a number of cases lodged in the Supreme Court were decided in favor of Duterte’s allies and against his enemies.
Ordinarily, ABS-CBN would have 30 days in which to respond to the quo warranto position but, according to a reporter at the Supreme Court, this period may be shortened.
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This is because it may be overtaken by the recess of Congress which happens in about two weeks and without bill renewing ABS-CBN’s franchise passing the Third and Final reading, this will spell the end for the broadcast network’s operations.
So far, 11 bills seeking ABS-CBN’s franchise renewal have yet to be calendared. Attempts to renew ABS-CBN’s franchise were similarly stalled in previous sessions of congress.
A copy of Calida’s quo warranto could not be obtained immediately by reporters at the scene of the filing of the petition. Attempts by reporters to interview Calida on the basis of the quo warranto petition were refused with the solicitor general saying that he was headed to another appointment. He however had time enough to rebuff one male reporter, accusing him of hitting him and told him that “you better just practice (law) so we can see each other in court.”
However, in what appears to be a statement issued by Solicitor General Calida published by Facebook page Bulatlat, it was said that the quo warranto petition filed sought to “…put an end to what we discovered to be highly abusive practices of ABS-CBN benefitting a greedy few at the expense of millions of loyal subscribers. These practices have gone unnoticed or were disregarded for years,”
Further on in the statement it is claimed that “…petition will show that ABS-CBN has been broadcasting for a fee, which is beyond the scope of its legislative franchise. Further, the media giant, hiding behind an ‘elaborately crafted corporate veil’ has been allowing foreign investors to take part in the ownership of a Philippine mass media entity, in gross violation of the foreign interest restriction of mass media provided under Section 11, Article XVI of the Constitution.
“ABS-CBN abused the privilege granted by the State when it launched and operated a pay-per-view channel in ABS-CBN TV Plus, the KBO Channel, without prior approval or permit from the National Telecommunications Commission.”
“Further, like Rappler, ABS-CBN had issued Philippine Deposit Receipts (PDRs) through ABS-CBN Holdings Corporations to foreigners, in violation of the foreign ownership restriction on mass media in the Constitution.”
Near the end of the statement it was said, “ABS-CBN Convergence, Inc (formerly Multi Media Telepony Inc) resorted to an ingenious corporate layering scheme in order to transfer its franchise without the necessary Congressional approval. It also failed to publicly offer any of its outstanding capital stock to any securities exchange within the Philippines within five years from the start of its operations, which is an indispensable condition in its franchise.”
In an interview on ANC, Congressman Rufus Rodriguez characterized Solicitor General’s petition as a direct assault to the freedom of the press and violated the equality as well as independence of the branches of government.
Rodriguez asserted that challenges to ABS-CBN’s franchise should be heard in Congress because it is the only branch of government given specific charge over the granting of franchises. He said he believes that the Supreme Court will deny the Solicitor General’s petition.
Rodriguez called on the leadership of the House of Representatives to start hearings on the bills filed in the Committee on Legislative Franchises and ASSERT its independence from the Executive branch of government.
All in all, it doesn’t look like ABS-CBN’s franchise renewal was NEVER going to be given a fair shot.
Writer.
The ABS CBN media network is the propaganda machine of the Aquinos and the oligarchs. It had attached itself to politicians in power…this is the reason they can just violate any law and rule in
their broacast franchise and TV network.
They had tried to ram into our throats, the Presidential candidacy of Mar Roxas, on the order of Pnoy Aquino and the oligarchs. Fortunately, they lost in the 2016 Presidential election, inspite of the election cheatings…. However, they were successful in cheating in the 2016 Vice Presidential election , with the Fake VP Lugaw Robredo…with the aid of the crook, former COMELEC Chief, Andres Bautista; using the HOCUS PCOS and SMARTSWITIK machines.
The Lopez family, which is the majority owner of the ABS CBN network, has also a billion pesos loan with the Development Bank of the Philippines…until now, the loan is never repaid.
So, it is lawful to Foreclose assets of the Lopez family, for the repayment of the loan…
We will not allow these scammers and crooks, to steal us blind !
I think that “loan” issue has been discussed elsewhere and from what I recall, ABS-CBN debunked it.
What concerns me here is that the House of Representatives has basically sat on bills seeking ABS-CBN’s franchise renewal, which basically follows what Duterte has said many times — that he will stop the renewal of ABS-CBN’s franchise.
This is worrisome because it appears that we no longer have a House of Representatives that acts independently of the Executive Branch.
If the leadership of the House of Representatives is sincere in representing the best interests of its constituencies, it would have allowed and even prodded the proper as well as timely deliberation on the ABS-CBN franchise bills.
“I think that “loan” issue has been discussed elsewhere and from what I recall, ABS-CBN debunked it.”
Are you, somehow, referring to this?
Who the fuck cares about ABS-CBN being closed? They are practicing mind conditioning, they are the top media ONLY because they barely have any competition and their corpo heads and investors are leaning on a particular political party to destroy their business opponents and to strengthen their corpo-politcal goals in the same fashion as how fascist governments use the media as a political tool. Most Filipinos are always online anyway getting their news from Youtube, Twitter, hell, I even get news from 9gag.
We are not gonna miss this outdated, out of touch media corporation who calls themselves number one yet, can’t compete with global trends. And no, this is not an attack of freedom of press because we have GMA7, CNN Ph, One News, Rappler etc. they are in trouble because they caused this problem the same way as Phil Airlines is in tax problems, which is funny because both companies are under the same circle of friends.