Congress rejects ABS-CBN franchise renewal

ABS-CBN’s application for a franchise renewal was denied by the Committee on Legislative Franchises of the House of Representatives after 13 public hearings.

Rep. Franz Alvarez (1st District Palawan), committee chairperson, announced that 70 lawmakers voted to adopt the technical working group’s (TWG) report recommending the denial of ABS-CBN’s application for franchise renewal.

Only 11 lawmakers voted against the report, while two inhibited and one abstained.

A total of 85 congressmen voted. Only 43 votes were required to pass the resolution, denying the franchise renewal.

The committee also adopted the TWG’s recommendations including an investigation, in aid of legislation, on the practice of issuing Philippine Depositary Receipts (PDRs) for industries required to be wholly owned and managed by Filipinos.

The report also recommended that a relevant committee in the House investigate the “various digital platform offerings of broadcast entities in order to protect the public interest and ensure compliance with legislative franchises or recommend amendments thereto to take into account technological advancements in digital broadcasting technology.”

Other issues that were recommended to be investigated are the current practice of extending tax incentives to “prevent abusive tax avoidance measures” and how ABS-CBN was able to recover its properties from the government “without recourse to the mandated procedures.”

The House legislative franchise and good government and public accountability committees conducted 13 hearings, discussing such issues as the dual citizenship of the network’s chairman emeritus Gabby Lopez, alleged labor violations, tax evasion, as well as alleged political bias.