and WENDELL VIGILIA
BROADCAST giant ABS-CBN Corp. On Thursday asked the Supreme Court to issue a temporary restraining order against the cease and desist order issued by the National Telecommunications Commission that
forced the network to go off air.
In a 46-page petition for certiorari and prohibition, the network also asked the High Court to set aside the NTC’s order and issue a permanent injunction against its implementation, saying the regulatory body committed grave abuse of discretion when it issued the order.
The cease and desist order was issued on May 5, a day after the network’s 25-year franchise expired, and despite the commission’s assurance in March that it will grant the network a provisional authority to operate while bills seeking the renewal of its franchise are being tackled by the House of Representatives.
The network shut down operations hours after the order was issued. On Thursday, its nightly news broadcast “TV Patrol” resumed airing on cable channel, ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC), and the network’s digital platforms which are not covered by the cease and desist order — ABS-CBN News Facebook, ABS-CBN News YouTube channel, iWant, and The Filipino Channel (TFC).
The NTC order has prompted allegations from President Duterte’s critics that his allies are trying to intimidate the media.
At the House of Representatives, opposition Rep. Edcel Lagman said the chamber failed to approve ABS-CBN’s application for franchise renewal because President Duterte is against it,
“It was President Rodrigo Duterte’s repeated pronouncements that he is opposed to the renewal of ABS-CBN’s franchise and he is not going to sign a bill granting any renewal which inveigled the leadership of the House of Representatives to unduly temporize on the renewal of the franchise and allowed the same to expire,” Lagman said in a statement.
Duterte has repeatedly threatened to block the renewal of ABS-CBN’s franchise after the channel angered him during the 2016 presidential election for failing to air part of his campaign commercial despite full payment.
`BAD FAITH’
ABS-CBN, in the petition, said the NTC, instead of issuing a provisional authority, “in bad faith,” issued the cease and desist order.
“It did exactly the opposite of what it was expressly enjoined to do, and it maliciously reneged on the representations Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba made to the House committee. This is grave abuse of discretion amounting to
lack of jurisdiction,” it said referring to the March 20, 2020 hearing of the House committee on legislative franchise wherein Cordoba himself declared that “The NTC will follow the advice of the Department of Justice and let ABS-CBN continue their operations based on equity.’
ABS-CBN also said its continued operation “is a matter of public interest and transcendental importance, it being among the largest broadcasting entities in terms of coverage and audience.”
It also also asked the Supreme Court to hear its petition quickly, saying the livelihood of thousands of its employees and their families were at stake.
The 66-year-old entertainment and media conglomerate, said in it its petition that it employs 11,000 people.
It also operates 21 radio and 38 television stations nationwide and distributes online content.
“To close ABS-CBN now when it is most needed would certainly be detrimental to the public,” it said. “ABS-CBN cannot be closed without compromising the fundamental guarantees of freedom of speech and the press.”
The NTC was not immediately available for comment. The regulator said on Wednesday it stood by its decision and that ABS-CBN could seek a temporary restraining order from a court.
Lagman, one of the authors of the bills seeking to renew the TV giant’s franchise,” challenged the President to categorically support the passage of the bills.
He said it is not the House members who should be prodded to act based on their conscience “since the President was the first to muddle the issue on renewal.”
“Then it is incumbent on him to unravel the controversy. “He can do this by being clear and unequivocal on the urgent and vital congressional approval of the network giant’s franchise.”
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque, asked if the will veto the franchise bill, if Congress passes it, said, “Unless there is any constitutional infirmity, I don’t think the President is inclined to veto it.”
Roque maintained the President is “neutral” on the issue and would let the lawmakers deliberate on the bill based on their conscience.
Lagman said Roque’s statement that the President is neutral “does not give the categorical go-signal for the reasonable consideration and approval of ABS-CBN’s franchise without further delay.”
“A posture of neutrality is still ambivalent and may not convey the exact message which the House leadership is waiting for,” he said.
Aside from hastening the resumption of ABS-CBN’s full operations, guaranteeing the jobs of its workers and assuring public access to information and entertainment, Lagman said this unequivocal statement of the President “would also quash any lingering suspicion that a hidden agenda is behind the closure of ABS-CBN.”
SENATE RESOLUTION
At least 13 senators filed a resolution urging the NTC to reconsider its cease and desist order pending the disposition of its franchise renewal.
Those who filed the Resolution No. 395 were Senate President pro tempore Ralph Recto, majority leader Juan Miguel Zubiri, minority leader Franklin Drilon, and Senators Juan Edgardo Angara, Nancy Binay, Pia Cayetano, Sherwin Gatchalian, Risa Hontiveros, Manuel Lapid, Leila de Lima, Emmanuel Pacquiao, Francis Pangilinan, and Joel Villanueva.
Hontiveros said the resolution aims to convince the NTC to fulfill its commitment to issue the provisional authority to ABS-CBN.
Drilon said he wants NTC officials to be kicked out of their jobs for issuing the order.
“The NTC commissioners should be dismissed for their grave abuse of discretion causing damage to society by depriving people of a major source of information on this (COVID-19) pandemic and causing the loos of jobs of 11,000 workers of ABS-CBN,” Drilon said.
He said the commissioners also displayed “gross and inexcusable ignorance of the law” when they disregarded precedents and the opinion given by Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra that the NTC can issue a provisional authority to operate while the franchise renewal is being tackled in Congress. — With Myla Iglesias, Jocelyn Montemayor, Raymond Africa and Reuters
