MEMBERS of various youth groups belonging to the Bacolod Youth Alliance (BYA) staged a "creative protest" outside ABS-CBN Bacolod station on Lacson Street over the weekend following the House Committee on Legislative Franchises' move to junk the network's franchise bid.
A portion of the station's fence was turned into a "freedom shrine" as youth protesters including student journalists hanged colorful cards with messages of sympathy to the workers and condemnation to what they call a blatant act of shutting down a television network by the Congress.
Aside from candle lighting, they also expressed their protest by shouting "defend press freedom" while holding red, blue and green--the colors of ABS-CBN logo--strip.
Krishna Ariola, founding member of BYA, said they started the protest around 3:30 p.m. Saturday with only about 15 youth members.
Ariola said some private individuals and members of progressive groups later joined as they posted the activity on social media through Facebook live.
The protest ended around 6 p.m. with at least 50 participants.
"We are not mourning the death of press freedom. Rather, we mourn the attack on press freedom," she said, adding that "we were there to keep the press freedom alive."
On Friday, the House Committee on Legislative Franchises voted to "kill" the bid of ABS-CBN Broadcast Corp. for a 25-year franchise.
Seventy congressmen voted not to grant the network a new franchise, 11 voted in favor of the network, two inhibited and one abstained.
The local youth group, however, viewed this development as not just an issue of ABS-CBN but a bigger issue that concerns everyone.
Ariola said this is not just about press freedom, it is about the right to speech and information as well as protection of human rights.
The youth will inherit all these problems in the future so they must participate in these undertakings, she said, adding that "to express dissent and protest is our responsibility to our country."
"It is our social and moral obligation to stand up," Ariola stressed.
Aside from the protest initiated by the BYA, some motorists also showed support to ABS-CBN by honking around major streets of the city.
Meanwhile, the labor sector said the disenfranchisement of ABS-CBN is an assault to press freedom.
General Alliance of Workers Associations (Gawa) secretary-general Wennie Sancho said "against an avalanche of false charges, ABS-CBN stood firmly with honor and dignity to debunk all those malicious allegations."
But in the end, it was the tyranny of numbers that prevailed. Figuratively speaking, ABS-CBN was "ten times outnumbered and twenty-seven times deceived," Sancho said.
"The image of battling on to the last man, so that the end is not capitulation, but death, plays a central role in the mythology of many cultures. In this scenario, defeat is seen as the highest form of exaltation," he added.
Sancho, also the labor representative to Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board-Western Visayas, said the satisfaction of having fought bravely and honorably, to the bitter end, the loser becomes victorious in playing out the tragedy with his comrades by his side in the face of certain death.
In view of this sacrifice, the losing side attains dignity in its own eyes; it becomes a moral hero in a deeply immoral world, he also said.