It didn’t help that the Philippines’ erstwhile top mass media corporation initially attempted to frame its legal troubles in a dishonest way and, worse, tried to pervert the honour of no less than the Philippine Senate to its corporate ends. Even in the early days, it was like a cornered animal biting at everything around it that moves after it was ordered to desist from broadcasting over public radio frequencies after its franchise to do so expired.
First, ABS-CBN execs made the fatal mistake of playing what should have been its final ace — its top Senate asset, Grace Poe — early in the game. It played Poe too early and too conspicuously when she stepped up to presumptuously chair an entire Senate “probe” into the plight of the media behemoth — an enterprise she and her family had a sizeable financial exposure to.
Next, ABS-CBN tried to make Filipinos believe it was the “victim” of an imagined government “assault on press freedom”. Unfortunately it exposed this as a lie as well by demonstrating that it remains perfectly free to stream its content over the Net. After all, the architect of that dishonest playbook is none other than “social news network” Rappler, itself a digital-only media organisation that asserts its entitlement to deliver content to a mass audience over the Net (no issue on the part of Rappler not having a franchise to broadcast over public radio frequencies, right?).
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More outrageous is the way a bevy of dishonest “journalists” are publishing misleading information based on these twisted ideas using their connections in foreign media. One such “journalist” is Jason Gutierrez whose “report” on the issue published on the New York Times on how “Duterte’s Shutdown of TV Network Leaves Void Amid Coronavirus Crisis” is filled with nothing but false information that directly echoes ABS-CBN’s asserted position.
Not surprisingly, a plea lodged by ABS-CBN before the Philippine Supreme Court that the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) shutdown order “caused ‘grave injustice and irreparable injury’ not only to the network but also to the viewing public” was thrown out in favour of opportunity granted to the NTC and both chambers of Congress to comment on the matter.
Congress, for its part, de-prioritised the ABS-CBN “issue” after House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano announced a House decision to suspend any further work on granting a provisional 5-month broadcast franchise to the network in favour of work on a more “comprehensive” 25-year franchise.
Cayetano said the decision came after lawmakers expressed varying views on the matter and in consultation with House members, political parties and groups. He said that the issue needed to be tackled more comprehensively, which was not possible with other priorities such as the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
“The House leadership have decided to forgo with the provisional franchise but we will immediately proceed with the hearings for the 25 year franchise,” Cayetano said in a speech delivered before the plenary on Tuesday.
Majority Leader Martin Romualdez said the plenary would now refocus on pending measures in response to the pandemic while the ABS-CBN franchise would be heard at the committee level.
Time and money is running out for ABS-CBN. Its brand equity is being eroded as it deploys its top “talent” to the job of doing its dirty PR work and directs them to rally their respective “fandom” to the corporate cause. Worse, in doing so, this very same “talent” are revealing themselves to be the dull witless hollow-heads everyone suspected they were as they aired their incoherent opinion and quaint temper tantrums on the issue over social media. More importantly, with every week that passes, Filipinos get used to not seeing ABS-CBN’s trashy content polluting their airwaves and wean themselves off the deadly media opiate they are being fed by the Kapamilya network.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
The Lopezes are corrupt and crooks; they are the “puppeteers of politicians, and corrupt players in the political landscape in Philippine politics. They did it with impunity during the Aquino era…the Aquino Cojuangco political axis , used them as their political media propaganda network. They use: fake news; biased opinions; political mudslinging; and other negative political tactics , on whoever is against their political patron, the Aquinos and others…. They robbed the Philippine government thru having loans, in multi billion pesos. Until now, the loans are not paid.
Cory Aquino gave the Lopezes, the ABS CBN and the Meralco, in return for their being their propaganda media. The Lopezes grew very rich , thru these scams during the Aquino era. They were able to contribute to the political campaign funds, of crooked politicians, like: Grace TraPoe; the crook Cayetano; the swine crook Porky Drilon; etc…This is how they keep these politicians, inside their influence to protect their corrupt ways, and wrongdoings…
“Ginisa tayo sa sarling mantika, mga kababayan…” Foreclose all the assets of the Lopezes; and down with their political puppets !
why not those who dont want to watch dont watch, and those who want to watch watch? i just dont understand this glee at the unemployment of others. one is free inside their minds to feel superior over abs watchers, but this feeling of knowing whats best for filipinos and not allowing them to decide for themselves is just tyranny.