{"id":244609,"date":"2020-02-11T20:08:28","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T01:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=244609"},"modified":"2020-02-11T20:08:28","modified_gmt":"2020-02-12T01:08:28","slug":"abs-cbns-fate-up-to-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/02\/11\/abs-cbns-fate-up-to-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"ABS-CBN\u2019s fate up to Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ABS-CBN\u2019s 25-year congressional franchise will expire on March 30, 2020, unless Congress and Duterte grant its renewal. (File photo by patrickroque001\/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— The fate of embattled broadcasting firm ABS-CBN Corp. is now up to the Supreme Court, Malaca\u00f1ang said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

This, after Solicitor General Jose Calida filed before the Supreme Court (SC) a quo warranto petition seeking the forfeiture of the legislative franchises of ABS-CBN Corp. and its subsidiary, ABS-CBN Convergence Inc.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Palace reporters, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo maintained that Calida was only fulfilling his mandate as the government\u2019s top counsel when the latter filed the petition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will repeat our position on the matter. The filing of petition for quo warranto is on the initiative of the Solicitor General, pursuant to his constitutional duty to file any action in court in the event of any, from his point of view, transgression of any law. That\u2019s why he filed a case,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will leave it to the Supreme Court, vis-\u00e0-vis that petition.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his quo warranto plea, Calida accused the local media giant of committing \u201chighly abusive practices\u201d at the expense of millions of its loyal subscribers and hiding \u201cbehind an elaborately crafted corporate veil.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calida also claimed that ABS-CBN violated the 1987 Constitution when it allowed foreign investors to take part in its ownership by issuing Philippine Deposit Receipts through ABS-CBN Holdings Corp.<\/p>\n

Section 11(1), Article 16 of the 1987 Constitution provides that the ownership and management of mass media “shall be limited to citizens of the Philippines, or to corporations, cooperatives or associations, wholly-owned and managed by such citizens.”<\/p>\n

Earlier Tuesday, the SC ordered ABS-CBN to comment on the quo warranto suit filed by Calida.<\/p>\n

No Duterte hand<\/strong><\/p>\n

Panelo also reiterated that Duterte is not behind Calida\u2019s filing of the quo warranto petition against ABS-CBN.<\/p>\n

The President\u2019s gripes against ABS-CBN stemmed from his \u201cdispleasure\u201d over the news firm\u2019s failure to run his political advertisements during the 2016 presidential derby, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President has nothing to do with it. Whatever the utterance the President made in relation to the ABS-CBN came from his displeasure of being a victim of fraud, relative to his paying, for his campaign commercial that was never aired,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, those utterances fall within the freedom of expression and we cannot deprive him of that, given that the Constitution grants that to all citizens of this country,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

ABS-CBN\u2019s 25-year congressional franchise will expire on March 30, 2020, unless Congress and Duterte grant its renewal.<\/p>\n

Up to Congress<\/strong><\/p>\n

Panelo also insisted that the renewal of ABS-CBN\u2019s legislative franchise would be up to Congress.<\/p>\n

He made the remarks following the claim of some critics that the President might make a way to stop the granting of the franchise to ABS-CBN.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd let me say that the grant of the franchise falls exclusively within Congress\u2026 Some people are saying, \u2018The President can veto, in the event that renewal is given by Congress,\u2019\u201d Panelo said. \u201cAgain, the Constitution says that can be via three-fourths vote or two-thirds, it can be overruled. In other words, from whatever angle you look at it, it\u2019s Congress, it\u2019s not the President.\u201d<\/p>\n

A congressional franchise bill needs to be first approved by the House of Representatives and the Senate before the President can decide on its fate.<\/p>\n

As president, Duterte has the power to sign into law or veto bills that Congress approves.<\/p>\n

House lawmakers, however, have yet to deliberate on the franchise renewal of ABS-CBN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— The fate of embattled broadcasting firm ABS-CBN Corp. is now up to the Supreme Court, Malaca\u00f1ang said on Tuesday. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":239442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-ruth-abbey-gita-carlos","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244610,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244609\/revisions\/244610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}