EVERY now and then, ABS-CBN gets things wrong.
For one, it continues to under-report what’s happening outside of Metro Manila. Cebu or any other growing city outside of the capital region only makes it to the “national” newscast when something goes spectacularly wrong in these communities.
On some nights, if you anchored what you know about the country only on the ABS-CBN “national” newscast, it’s as if another accident in Metro Manila’s rail system was a more important story than, say, the complete absence of rail systems in any other city outside of it.
True, the Lopez-owned network occasionally produces some inspiring stories. It’s encouraging to watch, from time to time, its profiles of formerly poor families who have built thriving businesses selling leche flan or running community-based tourism ventures or supplying sustainably grown livestock and vegetables.
Yet all of the airtime it devotes to positive stories about the best of what Filipinos can do is arguably much less than the time it devotes to melodramatic telenovelas—where being poor is presented as virtue, while striving for prosperity is condemned as vice.
It encourages a cult of celebrity and keeps various fandoms distracted by show biz gossip.
Like every other media organization in the country, it needs to be more consistent about treating the subjects of its news stories and investigations more fairly. And it needs to be more transparent about the political preferences and loyalties of its leadership—both in its editorial and business sides.
Despite all these flaws, I hope ABS-CBN gets a fair chance of having its legislative franchise renewed. I hope it gets an even-handed hearing in the Supreme Court, which no less than the national government’s top lawyer has asked to revoke its franchise.
If one of Solicitor General Jose Calida’s accusations against ABS-CBN sounds familiar, that’s because the same charge has been raised against Rappler. It is no accident that the Duterte administration has accused both ABS-CBN and Rappler of “biased” and unfair coverage—and now uses the state’s formidable resources to accuse these media companies of violating the 1987 Constitution.
Never mind if at least one other government agency has said that the use of financial instruments like Philippine Depositary Receipts (PDRs) is above-board and does not violate the Constitution’s ban on foreign ownership of media companies. Facts are fragile these days. Often, they seem fungible.
The attack on ABS-CBN is two-pronged. Apart from defending itself in Court, it has barely seven weeks to win more allies in the Lower House before its franchise expires. On both fronts, its prospects seem grim.
Since the year started, 16 more members of the House of Representatives have come forward as co-authors of House Bill 676, which seeks to renew ABS-CBN’s franchise. But at 20 co-authors in all, they aren’t likely to make much progress. House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, in a CNN Philippines report last Friday, Feb. 14, 2020, has already said the House was “too busy” with other matters to take up the bill.
Among the Duterte administration’s supporters, the network’s troubles are being framed not as an attack on press freedom and an attempt to silence all critical coverage. Rather, the issue is being framed as a matter of putting an end to “unscrupulous business practices.”
I am not an ABS-CBN fan. All the celebrity tweets trying to rally support for it do not move me at all.
Yet for all their flaws, and there are many, I would still trust ABS-CBN and most mainstream media organizations like it to let me know what our national government is doing or failing to do. You don’t have to be an ABS-CBN fan to see this brazen attack on its survival for what it is: a settling of petty scores by a government that really does have more important things to do.