Former ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs reporter Ed Lingao posted his view on the shut down of ABS-CBN and his journey.
This was posted on his Facebook account, long but worth reading.
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Before I left for Iraq in 2003, I was asked repeatedly WHY, when I didn’t have to (I was in Current Affairs, I wasn’t even in News), and besides, why tempt fate (Afghanistan was just two years earlier, and we almost failed to make it out of that one).
Some even asked if it was for the hazard pay (“Ang laki siguro ng binayad sa iyo ano?”) No I did not get any hazard pay at all. Returning after a month in Iraq, I just collected my one month salary as a regular Manila-based producer. Was it the “overwhelming” support that we got during these deployments? Hardly. I bought a second hand flak jacket in Quiapo using my own money, and borrowed steel helmets from the Philippine Marines. I borrowed some money from friends and colleagues to add to our suicide budget (Thank you David Jude Sta. Ana!) and my wife also pitched in to help. In Baghdad, rival GMA’s Howie Severino was even kind enough to give me his leftover Iraqi money before they returned to Manila (I have no idea how Howie liquidated THAT expense)
I did not do it for ABS-CBN.
I did it because it was something that had to be done, And sometimes, you really believe it has to be done by you. That is why it pains me whenever people throw around that “bayaran” and “presstitute” label so glibly just because they disagree with what you have to say.
Is the profession perfect? Far from it. ABS-CBN was a perfect example of our many imperfections. We fought our internal battles more times than I would care to remember, from problems with politics to problems with priorities. And in the end, I really learned to appreciate the people I worked with – the colleagues who stood by us in our many battles, and some of our immediate bosses who covered for us, or simply turned a blind eye, when we simply refused to obey. Loyalty to your profession needs to trump other loyalties. Sound noble, right? Well, sometimes, or perhaps many times, we lose our battles.
The point is to know that these are battles that we need to keep fighting.
And so it was a love-hate relationship of sorts with that network. There were days you stood proudly, and days when you wanted to walk out.
In the end, we upped and left, joining ABC-5 in 2004. ABS-CBN filed a P21 million damage suit against me and two other correspondents for breach of contract. Our contract stated that we were to “avoid doing anything prejudicial to the interest of ABS-CBN” for a period of one year. Needless to say, we refused to have the network dictate how we could practice our profession long after we had left the station.
(After several years, the Quezon CIty Regional Trial Court dismissed ABS-CBN’s suit. Refusing to give up, the network elevated it to the Court of Appeals. Sometime in 2011 or 2012, I was finally informed by our lawyer Atty. Chel Diiokno that the CA had also thrown out the network’s case. We found it amusing that the network was facing so many cases for dismissing several workers, while it spent eight years chasing after those who had chosen to leave voluntarily.)
I thought of putting this all out here for context. There are those who seem to think I am still with ABS (helloooo) and at least one guy who keeps insinuating I was paid off by that network to side with it on the franchise issue (hellloooooo).
Now to the issues. This is the fun part.
-Clearly, the network’s broadcast problem is because of a lack of a congressional franchise. To me, that was never even a point of debate. I don’t even know why some people try to debate me on this as if I had ever said otherwise. I have pointed this out in so many explainers in the past. Act 3846 of 1931 clearly states that you cannot broadcast without a congressional franchise. That predates any presidential decree or post-87 Constitution law or MOU.
But would a provisional authority (PA) from the NTC have sufficed?
I was always suspicious of that proposal by legislators to just have the NTC issue a provisional authority. Solb na kaagad?
I’m no lawyer, but the jurisprudence was pretty clear as early as 2003, when the SC released GR 144109. That ruling threw out the Justice Department’s 1991 legal opinion that the NTC can issue a PA while congress deliberates on a franchise. That DOJ opinion, Opinion 98 Series of 1991, was issued by then Justice Secretary Franklin Drilon. Incidentally, Drilon still maintains the same opinion. Lawyers being lawyers, people argued back and forth that this ruling vs a provisional authority did not apply to ABS-CBN because the circumstances were different. In 1994, the NTC, KBP, and the franchise committee signed an MOU along the same lines. But none of them can trump an SC decision.
In other words, 17 years ago, the SC already said that a congressional franchise is needed, and a provisional authority (PA) will simply not suffice.
-When the DOJ, the NTC, and the legislators declared in early March that the franchise crisis had been averted with their provisional authority (PA) compromise, I thought that:
a) this is a tenuous and legally unstable/untenable arrangement,
b) the provisional or temporary authority can be withdrawn anytime, meaning the network will have to “behave” (or be held hostage) in accordance with the wishes of the issuing authority. In other words, good luck, hawak na sila sa bayag. And,
c) congress now has an even better excuse not to act on the franchise bill any time soon. Until it’s too late. Like what happened after May 5.
Other people breathed a sigh of relief with that compromise; but i thought, being the eternal pessimist, that this is going to be even more problematic.
-the ball really goes back to Congress. The NTC is just a patsy. Congress is the one with the responsibility and the power to review and approve a broadcast franchise. Congress used that power by simply sitting on the franchise bills in the 16th, 17th, and 18th Congresses.
It could have been acted on by the 16th Congress, but the urgency was apparently not yet there since the expiration was still three congresses and one administration later.
So why didn’t the bills move in the next two congresses? It is not like Congress simply forgot that there were franchise bills pending before them, because President Duterte himself chose to keep reminding Congress every chance he could (May 2017 and December 2019, among other times) to NOT renew the franchise.
In May 2017, he launched a tirade at the network, and told Congress, “No need to renew.” Last year, he told the Lopezes to simply sell the network, because Congress would not be giving them a franchise. “Ang inyong franchise mag-end next year If you are expecting na ma-renew ‘yan, I’m sorry. You’re out. I will see to it that you’re out.”- Dec. 3, 2019. And there were many other incidents in between. Of course, you all remember these cases, don’t you?The President’s supporters happily gloated at the projected demise of the network. Just review your timelines, I’m sure you can’t miss them, unless you deleted them as soon as Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque declared the other day that the President is now neutral on the issue and that he has already forgiven ABS-CBN for its transgressions.
Whatever the President’s present state of mind re ABS-CBN, the fact is that the past four years provide context to the entire timeline that would be irresponsible to ignore.
But the narrative is being changed. Just the other day, I bristled when one congressman insinuated that I was being malicious for asking him how the President’s four years of campaigning against the network’s franchise had figured in how we ended up here. This is context that doesn’t even need much research. In fact, to not bring it up would even be irresponsible. Thing is, politics tends to be blind to context.
-Should Congress have given the network a renewal? That is what congressional hearings are for. Unfortunately, it was done on the 11th hour, for reasons I will allow you to divine on your own.
For those who have many legal questions about alleged violations (channels vs frequencies, pay per view vs free, taxes, etc) committed by the network, please do watch the video of the hearing again. I will not detail the findings here anymore, because that would just encourage laziness.
I would say, though, that all the invited government agencies cleared the network of liabilities, except for a small fine.
In our interview with the NTC’s Deputy Commissioner Edgardo Cabarios yesterday, he was pretty clear as well – for them, the station has no pending issues that could have blocked the renewal of a franchise. The thing is, a franchise is a political vote, and it never even came to a vote. So while the station qualifies technically, the all-important question now is whether it qualifies politically.
-So it comes to this – ABS-CBN may not broadcast on radio and TV because it had no congressional franchise. That franchise application never got off the ground because Congress declared it was too busy with other things. In fact, if Congress had its way, the hearings would have started after the President’s SONA in July this year. Go figure.
-On the other hand, did Congress refuse to act because of the President’s very vocal, very angry, and very public orders to Congress (“No need to renew,” May 2017 speech; “Ipag bili na ninyo iyan,” December 2019 speech) not to renew the station’s franchise?
I just ask these questions because these are the context of our times. I leave it to you to answer on your own. But remember the context.
-Just an added detail. There have been cases when broadcast companies continued to operate long after their franchise lapsed. The 11 radio stations of the CBCP continued operating for more than two years after their franchise lapsed in 2017, before they were given a new one. Not even a provisional authority was issued by the NTC. Asked why this does not apply as well to ABS-CBN, Cabarios told us that there was a complaint against ABS-CBN, so they cannot just ignore the lapsed franchise, like they did with the CBCP radio stations.
-To those who use the justification that press freedom is a right, but broadcasting is a privilege, I say you are correct in the wording. But I would also say that you delude yourselves by memorizing words, and failing to understand the principles.
When an administration goes to great lengths to shut down a platform of media because the principal does not like the network, that is an attack on the media. Bring them to court. Sue them. Build a case. You have all the departments at your disposal. There is even that archaic and much abused libel provision in the Revised Penal Code. When you just use your numbers in Congress for a political attack, that may be “legal”, but that, to anyone with a basic grasp of english, is still an attack on the press.
In the end, it is about controlling editorial content with methods beyond the purview of law, using your powers to influence what stories are covered, and how they are presented. Not all attacks against the media are done with a gun.
Make no mistake, every administration does this, but some do it to different degrees – some with intimidation, others do it with a lot of screaming and arm-twisting. Others simply order an all-out assault. Erap’s method vs the Inquirer and my old The Manila Times was the ad boycott, and ordering investigations against the owners of the media companies until the Gokongweis were forced to sell the newspaper. All still legal. Yet these were clearly attacks on the press.
It’s all a bit difficult to fit in a meme, I have to admit. But there has to be a good reason why our head takes up 8-10 percent of our body weight (depending on when your last haircut was).
In this case, the President has made a big issue over alleged bias of the network, and its refusal to air some of his campaign ads. Instead of filing suit for these personal complaints, he campaigned for almost four years using his position and his official platforms of public speeches, and even radio television Malacanang or RTVM, against that network’s franchise renewal. If anything, it was an attack on a media organization (organizations, really, if you go by the record of the last four years) using an office. And then finally, a political process, the grant of a congressional franchise, was the switch that shut off the power. Did the President personally pull the plug the other day? After four years, that question is very interesting, but no longer material.
Legal, yes, but still an attack.
We complained, we rallied, we protested whenever Erap, or GMA or Aquino lashed out at the press, and that is all on record for everyone to see. Aquino even liked to complain that we were so unfair to him (pero Dilawan kami, diba? bakit ganun?). Yet it still surprises some of you that we rally to the banner of press freedom when one of us is shut down?
Seriously? Where have all of you been for the past four years?
-There are those who argue that press freedom is alive anyway because there are still other media organizations operating. That is correct. But do not use that line to conclude that the press was never under attack. To say that there is no attack because we are still publishing and writing is like saying that Hitler did not attack the Jews because not all of them were killed. Weird logic? That’s the point.
I write this because there are those who fail to understand what we do, and blame us for it. There are those who rightly hold us to account, yet are angered when we hold government to account. You should demand more from your government, in the same way that you should also demand more from your media. And yes, admittedly, we also need to demand more from ourselves as well. They all should go together.
ABS-CBN, during my time, was far from perfect, but I had worked with, to my mind, some of the best journalists I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. And many of them did put up a good fight, despite the imperfections of the institution. Of course there were the others there, but never mind.
Encourage good media by patronizing them, watching them, reading them, een criticizing them, instead of relying on your FB and saying, mabuti na lang may Facebook, dun na lang ako umaasa. You cannot just complain about bad programming if you are one who really patronizes inane shows instead of good programs. And yes, there are good programs out there, it’s just that not enough people are willing to vote with their remote.
It is not difficult to just be agreeable, and to go with the flow of a popular populist government. But the fourth estate is not supposed to do that, even if some of us have already signed on.
If it was easy, then it wouldn’t be journalism, now would it? But then again, how many people would agree with that statement?
If you got this far, then congratulations for being very patient. Sometimes I still wonder if people really read long posts, or if they just automatically troll away even if i just write Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit.
In secula seculorum. Amen
(The first line of Loren Ipsum is the usual typesetting placeholder, and does not really mean anything. The last line is Latin for “forever and ever.” No connection whatsoever with the post, it was just meant to confuse you)
