Rep. Edcel Lagman on Monday filed a resolution urging the House's committee on legislative franchises to quickly report out for plenary action a consolidated version of several bills proposing the renewal of the franchise of ABS-CBN Corp. for another 25 years.
Lagman, an independent, filed House Resolution 639 appealing to the leadership and membership of the chamber "to uphold and respect the freedom of the press as an indispensable component of the freedom of expression and free speech by requiring the Committee on Legislative Franchises to act immediately on the bills renewing the giant network’s franchise."
The franchise will expire early this year, and Congress's failure to renew it will result in the cessation of the broadcast network's operations.
Lagman said the resolution invoked as a fitting precedent the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court in Chavez vs. Gonzales and NTC.
That resolution found the warnings of then-Secretary of Justice Raul Gonzales and the National Telecommunications Commission for radio and television media not to air or broadcast the purported wiretapped “Garci tapes” under pain of revocation of their certificates to operate to have a “chilling effect” on press freedom and constituted “unconstitutional prior restraint on the exercise of freedom of speech and of the press.”
Lagman said the repeated threats of President Rodrigo Duterte against the renewal of the franchise of ABS-CBN Corp. due to his personal grievances against the network giant constituted prior restraint on press freedom in light of the Chavez ruling.
"Due to the President’s continuing objection to the franchise renewal of ABS-CBN, the Committee on Legislative Franchises has not acted on eight pending bills similarly proposing a 25-year extension of ABS-CBN’s franchise," he said.
Lagman said the resolution emphasized that time was of the essence because the franchise of ABS-CBN would expire on March 30, 2020, or very soon thereafter, and Congress had only 24 regular session days from its resumption on Jan. 20, 2020, to its Holy Week adjournment starting on March 14, 2020, to May 3, 2020.
The House leadership through Palawan Rep. Franz Alvarez, chairman of the House Committee on Legislative Franchises, earlier assured ABS-CBN it would be fair and objective in reviewing its application for the renewal of its franchise.
But he reminded the broadcast network that this congressional grant allowing it to continue its operations was a privilege and not a right under the law. He said franchises were privileges given by the government for the operation of certain businesses like radio and television stations.
Lawmakers have said the bill providing for the extension of the broadcast network's franchise was stalled due to the non-cooperation of the network's owners with the legislators who sponsored the bill.
One of the bill's proponents said despite repeated requests, the owners failed to submit documents that would prove that the network was 60 percent owned by Filipinos.
Under the Constitution, media entities are required to have at least 60 percent Filipino ownership.
In 2019, ABS-CBN did not hold a stockholders' meeting, at the time the renewal if its franchise was already pending at the House of Representatives.