The leaders of the House of Representatives on Friday assured the public that radio-broadcast network ABS-CBN will have its day in court and that the House will observe due process in tackling the TV network’s application for the renewal of its 25-year franchise to operate.
“I would like to assure everyone that we will follow due process. We will, as much as possible, hear everybody’s side,’ Deputy Speaker and Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte said during the ABS-CBN public affairs program Headstart on ANC. “That we can assure to the public.”
“What is important at this point is that ABS-CBN and other sectors should be given due process. The House will decide as a collegial body,” he said.
The House as a Committee of the Whole passed last Wednesday House Bill (HB) 6732 granting the TV network a provisional franchise to broadcast till October 31, to give lawmakers enough time to hear its application for renewal.
The House is expected to pass HB 6732 on third and final reading when it resumes session on May 18.
One of the seven HB 6732 co-authors of Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, Villafuerte noted that Cayetano has given the assurance that the House will take up this issue—to quote the Speaker—with “complete impartiality and fairness, whether or not the network shall be granted a franchise for another 25 years.”
Deputy Speaker and Mandaluyong Rep. Neptali Gonzales II, co-author of HB 6732, added that as assured by the Speaker, the ABS-CBN will be given an opportunity to answer all the allegations against it. In the same vein, those who oppose the franchise will also be given time to air their opposition as well, Gonzales added.
“I urge ABS CBN then to prepare and ready its answers for all the charges and allegations being raised against the network. Being mindful that the Committee on Franchise is really the proper forum to answer all of this,” Gonzales said.
Villafuerte said that House members wouldn’t have enough time to tackle ABS-CBN’s renewal application till the Congress’ sine die adjournment on June 5, given (1) the multi-faceted ABS-CBN issues that need to be taken up thoroughly, and (2) the need for legislators to devote their time over the next two weeks to pending measures whose passage are crucial for the country to deal with the global health emergency induced by the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
He said on Headstart that these measures requiring urgent action by the Congress are HB 6623 that aims to help prepare Filipinos for the “new normal” way of life that is anchored on social or physical distancing and other health and safety protocols to avoid Covid-19 infection; and HB 6709 that proposes a three-year, P1.5-trillion infrastructure spending package focused on health, education, agriculture, local infrastructure and livelihood (HEAL).
The third priority measure that the House will tackle, he said, is the P1.3-trillion economic stimulus package drawn up by the House’s Defeat Covid-19 Committee (DCC) economic stimulus cluster co-chaired by Albay Rep. Jose Ma. Salceda and Marikina Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo.
Villafuerte explained that the measure sponsored by Salceda and Quimbo are meant as a stimulus package primarily for businesses and the tourism sector, while HB 6709 is an economic recovery plan similar to the Marshall Plan that the United States had implemented to rehabilitate its European allies after World War II and to the New Deal that was carried out by the then-Roosevelt Administration in the US after the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Villafuerte and Cayetano are co-authors of HB 6623 and HB 6709.
Only twelve session days are left before the 18th Congress ends its first regular session on June 5.
Villafuerte said the House leadership decided to expedite the chamber’s action on the ABS-CBN case by convening the House into a Committee of the Whole—as allowed under House rules—to pass HB 6732 on second reading by voice vote.
Meanwhile, House Committee on Legislative Franchises chairman and Palawan Rep. Franz Alvarez said his committee would consider the explanation and apology of National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) officials regarding their cease and desist order against broadcast network ABS-CBN.
Alvarez earlier confirmed receipt of the NTC’s reply to the House committee’s show cause order directing the agency officials why they should not be cited in contempt for backtracking on its earlier commitment to grant ABS-CBN a provisional authority to operate beyond its May 4 franchise expiry.
“The Committee shall duly consider the officials’ explanation and the apology contained therein in resolving whether or not they should be held in contempt,” Alvarez said.
The NTC officials said that the issuance of a provisional authority would have amounted to an “encroachment” of Congress’ exclusive power to grant, deny, extend, revoke, or modify broadcast franchises.
