Angara: Senate plenary debates on Cha-cha to start after SONA

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SENATE plenary deliberations on proposed economic amendments to the 1987 Constitution will start after President Marcos Jr’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July, Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara said yesterday.

Angara, chairperson of the subcommittee of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes, said he and the panel’s legal experts will work on their committee report on proposed Resolution of Both Houses No. 6 (RBH 6) while Congress is adjourned sine die from May 25 to July 21.

RBH 6 is authored by Angara, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri and Senate president pro tempore Loren Legarda. It enjoins both houses of Congress to introduce amendments to the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution but limited only to public services, education, and advertising.

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Angara said he plans to sponsor the committee report once Congress resumes for the third regular session of the 19th Congress and after the President’s SONA.

“We’ll work during the (sine die) break to produce the committee report and then sponsor it when regular sessions return (on July 22)… I think that should be sufficient time to allow us to produce the committee report,” he told reporters.

“So, we will have the break to finish the committee report, but of course we will have to consult our colleagues what will be our next step. As you know, merong mga ayaw (there are some senators who do not want) to go further because they feel, it’s laying the predicate for a case to be filed in the Supreme Court. It’s said on record. That’s something we have to settle internally,” he added.

Angara said senators will not rush its floor deliberations, noting that they have three months to debate on the proposed amendments to meet their set October deadline.

“We have few months to do the debates. As you know, it can take anywhere — one senator can take several weeks — you’ve seen some of the bills that we are sponsoring now, the Procurement Law, I think we’re on our third or fourth week already,” he said.

Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel III has said that Cha-cha has no chance of passing in the Senate after Zubiri said that about eight to nine senators are opposed to revising the Charter.

The Senate needs at least 18 votes or two-thirds of its 24 members, to approve the proposed changes.

The House of Representatives has passed and transmitted RBH 7, its version of the economic Cha-cha measure, to the Senate for the senators’ consideration and approval.

ADVERTISING SECTOR

The Angara panel yesterday held its fifth public consultation on RBH 6, which focused on the advertising sector.

During the hearing, Rennali Trajano, creative director of Artzap Studio, said they see no problem in inviting foreign companies to invest in the advertising industry and to partner with local companies as long as Filipino owners are given the leeway to decide their income sharing scheme.

“I think it is our right as business owners to have 100 percent freedom to give whatever percentage we feel will work,” Trajano said.

Jerraemie Patulot, a representative of TV-5, said allowing foreign advertising firms to invest in the country will be good for the advertising industry since this will allow local companies to partake in the foreign group’s best practices.

However, Patulot said that “we believe that there must be a particular development that may be assessed through our existing statutory requirements or existing regulatory framework in order for us to check if the content of the advertisement would be applicable or it can be published or given to public consumption.”

This was echoed by Rudolph Jularbal, representative of the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas KBP) and the Ad Standards Council (ASC), who said that foreign advertising agencies should be required to practice self-regulation in their ad contents to protect the interest of consumers.

“Because of technology, the entry of content into the Philippines has somehow loosened.

However, because of self-regulation, we still ensure that even if the content is placed outside of the Philippines, but as long as they are aired in platforms in the Philippines, the ASC regulates these materials,” Jularbal said.

“So far as the industry is concerned, we are agnostic to whether there’s foreign ownership or not,” he added.

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Dino John Recto, of the Board of Investments, said their agency supports the introduction of amendments to the strict economic provisions of the Constitution, but noted that Congress has made many reforms to existing laws to relax such strict provisions.

He said the restrictive provisions can be remedied “as we construct or provide all the limitations and all of the necessary regulations in the law that we can provide.”

On the other hand, Stanley Cabrera, legal counsel of the Federation of International Cable Television Association of the Philippines (FICTAP), said amendments to the Public Services Act should be enough to allow the entry of foreign investors in the country.

“We would prefer that the broadcasting industry to still maintain 100 percent Filipino ownership because for the past years, there’s a lot of volatility in the broadcast industry.

So, we would prefer if those developments in the broadcast industry would settle first so that if we introduce significant changes it might increase the volatility in the local industry,” Cabrera said.

He said the dominance of some social media streaming like Netflix has already changed the atmosphere of the local broadcasting industry.

“Social media streaming, they are already controlled by foreign entities… We welcome foreign investments but we are looking as well to what effect that would do in the short term,” he added.

Jose Policarpio, president and chief executive officer of IBC-13, said they are against amending the Constitution since revisions can be made through the “statutory process by law.”

After the hearing, Angara said easing the ownership restrictions in the advertising industry does not matter anymore since the industry has become global.

“Actually it seems na global na talaga yung advertising. From what some of our resource persons said, sabi nila internet, YouTube, and sabi nila you have freelancers online. So, in effect, parang na by-pass na rin ‘yung regulations. The reality is that foreign talent is being hired by local advertising agencies, local talent is also being hired by foreign advertising agencies. So, in a way, parang hindi na rin ganun ka-importante ‘yung distinction between ownership (Actually, it seems that advertising has become global. From what some of our resource persons said, we have the internet, YouTube. They said that we have freelancers on line. So in effect, the regulations have been somewhat by-passed. The reality is that foreign talents are being hired by local advertising agencies, local talent are also being hired by foreign advertising agencies. So in a way, the distinction between ownership is somehow not that important anymore),” Angara said.

Angara said the subpanel will focus on coming up with proposals to protect the interests of the local advertising industry since local advertising agencies that have foreign partners give big portions of their earnings to their foreign counterparts.

He said that laws should also be crafted to ensure that the local advertising industry will be able to earn more than their foreign counterparts.

When asked if the advertising sector can be left out in the RBH 6 discussions, Angara said this will be a collective decision of the senators.

“It can be excluded or included. Depends really on our colleagues. But sa akin, ang maganda diyan, you just leave it, yung ‘unless otherwise provided by law,’ you just put that phrase there para yung future generations hindi na mahihirapan (But for me, the best thinsg to do is to leave the phrase ‘unless otherwise provided by law,’ you just put that phrase there so the future generations will not have a hard time [when they want to amend the provisions of the Constitution]),” he said.

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