ALBAY Representative Edcel Lagman on Friday, May 8, slammed House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano over the latter’s statement blaming the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) for the ABS-CBN shutdown.
He said Cayetano himself is to blame.
“Cayetano himself made the mess by blindly kowtowing to President Rodrigo Duterte’s repeated personal opposition to the renewal which unduly stalled the approval of the extension,” Lagman said.
He said “it is utterly pretentious for Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano to say that the passage of the franchise renewal will now be prioritized in order to ‘fix the mess’ which others made.”
Cayetano had insisted that the bills seeking to grant ABS-CBN a legislative franchise be tackled in May.
Lagman said Cayetano was fixated on President Rodrigo Duterte’s “personal opposition” to the ABS-CBN franchise renewal.
“Moreover, Cayetano cited his own personal grievances against ABS-CBN to justify his temporizing on the consideration of the 12 pending bills for renewal -- Cayetano must not wash his hands and absolve himself of blame at the expense of others,” he added.
Malacañang has said that Duterte, having accepted the apology of ABS-CBN president Carlo Katigbak, is “completely neutral” on the issue.
ABS-CBN ceased its broadcast operations on May 5, on the same day that the NTC issued a cease and desist order.
The network on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to stop the NTC order.
Lagman said it will take time before the Supreme Court can revoke the order from the NTC.
“A swift congressional action extending ABS-CBN’s franchise for another 25 years will render moot and academic the network’s petition before the Supreme Court to revoke the cease and desist order issued by the National Telecommunications Commission on May 5,” he said.
Cayetano, in a statement Friday, blamed the NTC and Solicitor General Jose Calida for the ABS-CBN shutdown.
Calida had blamed Congress for failing to act on measures seeking to grant the ABS-CBN franchise since 2016. (Jove T. Moya/SunStar Philippines)