THE chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means yesterday filed a bill seeking to grant ABS-CBN Corporation a new legislative franchise, more than four years after the House of Representatives denied the former broadcasting giant’s franchise renewal application in the 18th Congress.
Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, committee chairperson, filed House Bill No. 11252, saying the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) both testified in 2020 that ABS-CBN “did not violate ownership restrictions and did not have pending tax liabilities.”
“Given the merits of renewing the franchise, as well as the clarifications made by government agencies over certain allegations against the grantee, this representation urges Congress to reconsider the non-renewal of the franchise by the previous Congress,” Salceda said in the bill.
Salceda, a veteran economist-lawmaker, noted that the non-renewal of the franchise under the Duterte administration cost some 11,000 direct jobs at the heigh of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This representation believes that the information asymmetries that resulted from the loss of an information source caused thousands of new COVID-19 infections during the critical 2020 period,” he said.
Prior to the rejection of the franchise renewal application, Salceda said 36 percent of Filipinos “derived their news and entertainment from the channel,” adding that ABS-CBN’s regional network reach was also the source of news and updates in impending disasters, “making the channel crucial then to disaster risk reduction strategies at the local level.”
In a separate statement, Salceda said he believes that the “free market of ideas requires competition.”
“A virtual monopoly will not do, as far as disseminating ideas and keeping the public informed is concerned,” he said.
“I also owe it to Albay. ABS-CBN remains the single most important news source in Albay, despite its lack of a franchise. The SEC and BIR have cleared ABS-CBN of the allegations against them. I was a former co-author of their franchise in the past Congress. You will remember that I even warned against the franchise rejection on grounds that it will add to COVID-19 infections due to lack of information,” he said.
