Albay Rep. Joey Salceda has filed House Bill 11252, which seek to renew the franchise of ABS-CBN, almost 5 years since the House of Representatives under the Duterte administration revoked the media giant’s bid to renew its franchise.
The bill states;
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), during House deliberations on the ABS-CBN franchise in the previous Congress, certified that the franchise grantee did not violate ownership restrictions and did not have pending tax liabilities.
The non-renewal of the franchise, however, cost some 11,000 direct jobs. This representation also argued that the information asymmetries that resulted from the loss of an information source caused thousands of new COVID-19 infections during the critical 2020 period.
Prior to the rejection of the franchise renewal, some 36% of Filipinos derived their news and entertainment from the channel. ABS-CBN’s extensive regional network reach was also the source for news and updates on impending disasters, making the channel crucial then to disaster risk reduction strategies at the local level.
Given the merits of renewing the franchise, as well as the clarifications made by government agencies over certain allegations against the grantee, this representation urges Congress to reconsider the non-renewal of the franchise by the previous Congress.
It remains to be seen if the current House of Representatives under Marcos Jr. Admin will grant ABS-CBN to renew its franchise.
