SIXTY-SEVEN labor cases against ABS-CBN Corp. are pending at the National Labor Relations Commission and local courts, the Department of Labor and Employment said yesterday.
In a statement, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III denied claims made by the broadcast giant that the department has declared the latter as a “compliant company,”
“It is patently misleading to attribute to us the claim that ABS-CBN is a compliant company,” said Bello. “In fact, there are 67 pending cases against the company in the NLRC and the various courts.”
Bello said labor inspectors have found violations of labor laws and standards by ABS-CBN and told lawyers of ABS-CBN must be careful in quoting the department.
“It is therefore patently misleading to attribute to us the claim that ABS-CBN is a compliant company,” said Bello.
“Correcting the violations committed by ABS-CBN after inspection does not make it a compliant company,” he added.
Last Monday, Labor Undersecretary Ana Dione told a House inquiry that ABS-CBN was “fully compliant” with the directives of the department after a series of labor inspections was done in 2018.
Dione, however, stressed that by “fully compliant,” DOLE was referring merely to the findings during the labor inspection, and not to the cases of illegal dismissal filed before the NLRC.
Bello slammed ABS-CBN also for allegedly attempting to mislead lawmakers and the public when it used an old DOLE policy adopted more than 40 years ago and was declared by the courts in 2004 as being invalid.
He was referring to the lawyers of ABS-CBN, who told the inquiry that Policy Instruction No. 40 was the basis used for classifying workers in the broadcast company, without making mention that the said policy was issued in 1979 and was invalidated in 2004.
“To cite a policy that has been stricken down by the courts to have no basis in law and in fact, is plain and simple dishonesty meant to mislead the people and the members of Congress,” he said.
“They are being intellectually dishonest,” Bello added.
He said it is unacceptable for the television network to deceive members of the House of Representatives in its bid to gain approval for a new franchise.
‘SORRY BUT…’
Senior deputy majority leader Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla, one of the staunchest critics of ABS-CBN Corp., on Wednesday issued an apology but blamed “ABS-CBN people” for making viral a video showing him taking down notes while the national anthem “Lupang Hinirang” was being played at the House plenary last Monday.
The incident happened at the start of the eighth House hearing on the ABS-CBN franchise renewal application.
“I’d like to apologize for an earlier incident na ako po’y may ’sinusulat na note no’ng nag-flag ceremony tayo (I’d like to apologize for an earlier incident, where I was jotting down notes while during our flag ceremony). As usual, the ABS-CBN people are the ones playing it up now on social media. But I will forgive them,” Remulla said told the hearing last Wednesday.
Republic Act No. 8491, otherwise known as the Flag and Heraldic Code of the Philippines, states that reverence and respect shall at all times be accorded the flag, the anthem, and other national symbols.
Bulacan Rep. Jonathan Sy-Alvarado, chair of the House committee on good government which is holding the hearing jointly with the committee on legislative franchises chaired by Palawan Rep. Franz Alvarez, told Remulla he might be fined for his blunder, which the Cavite lawmaker said he was willing to pay.
Remulla, who has been confrontational in addressing the network’s executives, is among the lawmakers who netizens have been describing as “prosecutorial” in questioning ABS-CBN resource persons, along with SAGIP party-list Rep. Rodante Marcoleta who leads the group of lawmakers opposing the franchise renewal.
The congressman is an older brother of former Cavite Rep. Gilbert Remulla who, himself, began his career as an ABS-CBN reporter in the 1990s.
The lawmaker said he had to jot down notes after an idea popped into his head right before the national anthem.
“I wrote the note, hindi ko ho excuse ’to, (I wrote a note and this is not an excuse) because something went into my mind for the questions I will ask. Ako’y humihingi ng dispensa sa ating mga kababayan (I apologize to our countrymen),” he said.
‘WASTE OF TIME’
Buhay party-list Rep. Lito Atienza, who is among the authors of the bills seeking to renew the network’s franchise, urged the House leadership to act on the matter as soon as possible, saying that lengthy proceedings “is a waste of people’s money and time.”
“The questions have been nothing less than repetitious, and prosecutorial in tone. This prompts us to ask — is this a congressional hearing or a prosecutorial procedure? The bias is obvious and up to this point in time, they have not proven anything. How long will we make them wait? These are not normal times we are in, and the sooner we act on this, the better for everyone,” Atienza said.
Lawmakers led by Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. have been zeroing in on the network’s tax payments, reviewing its accounting books to ensure that it has been paying the correct amount of taxes since one of the allegations against the network is it has been engaging in tax avoidance schemes.
Based on Barzaga’s presentations, it appears that the P14 billion that the company paid to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) from 2016 to 2019 were the taxes of its employees and not its own.
The amount was an accumulation of income tax, value-added tax, withholding tax, expanded withholding tax, and other taxes that ABS-CBN had deducted from the salaries of employees, actors, and talents.
“The people’s impression is that you paid P14 billion but now you’re saying that it’s withholding (tax) on compensation. That is not the money of ABS-CBN, that is the money of the employees,” Barzaga told ABS-CBN officials.
But BIR Assistant Commissioner Manuel Mapoy told the panel Wednesday afternoon that the company remitted P15.3 billion in taxes from 2016 to 2019 alone and that it has been “regularly paying its corporate taxes for the past years.”
“There is no outstanding delinquent accounts as we speak,” he said while pointing out that ABS-CBN is being investigated for its 2019 tax payments.
ABS-CBN Group chief financial officer (CFO) Ricardo Tan said that ABS-CBN Corp. and its subsidiaries contributed P71.5 billion in taxes to the national economy in 17 years.
Marcoleta earlier accused ABS-CBN of engaging in tax “avoidance schemes, which he said deprived the government of the much-needed revenue,” noting that its effective tax rate in 2018 was at negative five percent. — With Wendell Vigilia