SOLICITOR General (Solgen) Jose Calida on Wednesday, May 6, said Congress is at fault for the shutdown of ABS-CBN’s broadcast operations and critics of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) are barking up the wrong tree.
“The bill renewing ABS-CBN’s franchise has been pending in Congress since 2016. The question we should be asking is, why hasn’t Congress acted on it? Who is at fault here?” Calida said in a statement Wednesday.
He said the NTC is not to blame for the shutdown of ABS-CBN because it is merely following the law.
“Without a valid and subsisting franchise from Congress, the NTC cannot allow any broadcasting entity from operating in the country,” Calida stated.
Calida heads the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), legal counsel of the NTC.
As counsel, the OSG on May 3 warned the NTC against granting ABS-CBN Corporation and its affiliate ABS-CBN Convergence provisional authorities to operate broadcasting services.
The OSG, in February 2020, also filed a quo warranto petition seeking to revoke ABS-CBN’s franchise for allegedly operating beyond the scope of its franchise.
Read: Quo warrants case filed against ABS-CBN
The NTC issued a cease and desist order against ABS-CBN on Tuesday, May 5, a day after the network’s 25-year franchise that was granted through Republic Act No. 7966 expired.
A total of 12 bills seeking to grant ABS-CBN another franchise remain pending before the House of Representatives, although the House committee on legislative franchises has started accepting position papers.
In compliance with the NTC order, ABS-CBN went off the air Tuesday evening.
In its order, the NTC said a valid congressional franchise is required under the Radio Control Law (Act No. 3846).
This law, as amended, provides that “no person, firm, company, association shall construct, install, establish or operate a radio transmitting station, or a radio receiving station used for commercial purposes, or a radio broadcasting station, without having first obtained a franchise therefore from the Congress of the Philippines.”
NTC Commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba faces the risk of being held in contempt by the House committee on legislative franchises because he assured in March that his office would issue a provisional authority to allow ABS-CBN to continue operations while Congress is still deliberating on the franchise bills. (MVI/SunStar Philippines)