{"id":258330,"date":"2020-06-17T06:03:27","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T10:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=258330"},"modified":"2020-06-17T06:03:27","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T10:03:27","slug":"abs-cbn-ownership-remained-with-lopez-family-enrile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/06\/17\/abs-cbn-ownership-remained-with-lopez-family-enrile\/","title":{"rendered":"ABS-CBN ownership remained with Lopez family: Enrile"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
During the House hearing on ABS-CBN\u2019s franchise issue, Enrile said the title of the company\u2019s broadcast facilities was never transferred to the government. (File photo by Judgefloro\/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said on Wednesday that the ownership of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. remained with the Lopez family despite the sequestration of the network during martial law.<\/p>\n

During the House hearing on ABS-CBN\u2019s franchise issue, Enrile said the title of the company\u2019s broadcast facilities was never transferred to the government.<\/p>\n

Enrile executed the sequestration order for all broadcast companies, including ABS-CBN, when president Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe facilities of the entire ABS-CBN complex, broadcast complex, were placed under the control of the government. The title of all of these facilities was never transferred to the government. They remained with the owners,\u201d Enrile said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHindi tama yung sinabi ni<\/em>\u00a0Jake Almeda-Lopez\u00a0na inagaw ni Presidente<\/em>\u00a0Marcos\u00a0yung<\/em>\u00a0ABS-CBN (What Jake Almeda Lopez said about President Marcos taking away ABS-CBN from them is not true). It was part of the national policy to immobilize and control the communication system and the outlets for information in the entire nation and that is what we did,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the hearing, ABS-CBN vice-chair Augusto Almeda Lopez claimed that the network had to retrieve their station themselves after the EDSA Revolution in 1986, stressing that it was not returned by the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cNoong nagkaroon ng<\/em>\u00a0EDSA Revolution, hindi naman sa pagbubuhat ng sariling bangko, kinuha sa amin ng<\/em>\u00a0Marcos\u00a0ang\u00a0<\/em>ABS-CBN, sasabihin ko sa inyo na hindi sinauli sa amin. Kinuha namin, binalik namin sa sarili namin<\/em>\u00a0(When there was an EDSA Revolution, I don\u2019t mean to brag but, when Marcos took away ABS-CBN from us, I\u2019ll tell you that it was not returned to us. We had to take it back ourselves),\u201d Almeda Lopez said.<\/p>\n

Enrile noted that ABS-CBN was re-opened in 1973 for purposes of being used by the government to broadcast information throughout the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1986, to be exact it was February 26, I, as Secretary of National Defense and sequestrator of ABS-CBN and all the other television, radio and communication facilities in the country, issued an order to lift the sequestration of ABS-CBN,\u201d Enrile said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the last time I had any contact or involvement with ABS-CBN,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

During the previous hearing on Monday, ABS-CBN stood by the legality of the return of ABS-CBN broadcast facilities to the Lopez family, as it never lost ownership of the network even during martial law.<\/p>\n

\u201cHindi po nawalay ang pag-aari ng<\/em>\u00a0Lopez family\u00a0sa<\/em>\u00a0ABS-CBN\u00a0at mga<\/em>\u00a0broadcast facilities (The Lopez family did not lose ownership of ABS-CBN and its broadcast facilities) and equipment even from the time when Martial Law was declared until today,\u201d said lawyer Arecio Rendor Jr., the network\u2019s legal counsel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was taken from ABS-CBN was the mere possession of all its real estate and broadcast equipment,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Rendor said that the return of real estate and broadcast facilities after the EDSA Revolution to the Lopezes underwent the due process.<\/p>\n

The process, he said, began when then ABS-CBN lawyer Lorenzo Tanada wrote to then-President Cory Aquino on April 17, 1986, to return possession of properties to ABS-CBN since the country was no longer in crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis paved the way for the execution of the agreement to arbitrate on January 6, 1987,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo administrations gave imprimatur for the return of the possession of ABS-CBN of its real estate, properties, and broadcast equipment. And even the Supreme Court won validating the agreement to arbitrate and another one for the factual circumstances lends constitutionality to the return,\u201d Rendor said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said on Wednesday that the ownership of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. remained with the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":246102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-filane-mikee-cervantes","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258330","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=258330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258331,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258330\/revisions\/258331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}