{"id":261468,"date":"2020-07-14T00:32:22","date_gmt":"2020-07-14T04:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=261468"},"modified":"2020-07-14T00:32:22","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T04:32:22","slug":"peoples-initiative-on-abs-cbn-largely-speculative-comelec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/07\/14\/peoples-initiative-on-abs-cbn-largely-speculative-comelec\/","title":{"rendered":"People\u2019s initiative on ABS-CBN \u2018largely\u2019 speculative: Comelec"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: Commission on Elections (Comelec) Spokesperson James Jimenez (PNA photo by Avito C. Dalan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/span>\u00a0\u2013 The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Monday refused to comment on whether the ABS-CBN\u2019s franchise can be regained through \u201cpeople\u2019s initiative\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cInasmuch as this matter is still largely speculative, both as to whether it will actually be carried out and as to whether it is an appropriate course of action to take in this case, the Comelec will refrain from issuing any statement on the matter,\u201d Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Jimenez, however, enumerated the poll body\u2019s primary duties with regards to the petition for people\u2019s initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, in response to requests for clarification, the Comelec\u2019s main tasks in any people’s initiative petition are: 1) to verify the gathered signatures; 2) to determine the sufficiency of the number of signatures gathered; 3) if the number of signatures is sufficient, to schedule and conduct a plebiscite,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The ABS-CBN\u2019s congressional franchise expired on May 4, 2020 but the House legislative franchises committee voted 70-11 to reject the network\u2019s application for another 25-year license to operate.<\/p>\n

Some lawyers and law professors pushed for the use of the proposed people’s initiative where voters can directly legislate a franchise for the network after the House Committee on Legislative Franchises junked ABS-CBN\u2019s franchise bid on July 10.<\/p>\n

Human rights lawyer Jose Manuel “Chel” Diokno said he believes that a proposed people’s initiative is feasible for the network.<\/p>\n

The idea was first raised by lawyer Enrique Dela Cruz in a now-viral Facebook post.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, lawyer Trixie Angeles said the people’s initiative may not be applicable to legislative franchises since Republic Act 6735, or the \u2018Initiative and Referendum Act\u201d is private or will only be applied to an individual or corporation.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said Malaca\u00f1ang would defer to the Supreme Court to decide if the network\u2019s franchise can be regained through “people\u2019s initiative.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Monday refused to comment on whether the ABS-CBN\u2019s franchise can be regained through …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":214744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-ferdinand-patinio","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261468","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261469,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261468\/revisions\/261469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}