Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello confirmed that ABS-CBN was able to comply with labor standards and to correct the violations they have committed due to labor-only contracting.
Bello confirmed: “We discovered some violations and we asked them to comply. We issued compliance orders and in fairness, they complied.”
Bello said that they will investigate more since they were not fully aware of the subsidiaries when they conducted the audit last 2018.
“Whether you have subsidiaries or not, we are not aware of that. Now that we know that there are subsidiary corporations, we will inspect them.”
Furthermore, former head of the ABS-CBN Corporate Services Group Mark Nepomuceno revealed to the Senate Public Services committee that giant network and its subsidiaries have the total number of 11,071 employees.
Some of the subsidiaries of ABS-CBN are as follows:
- DZMM and MOR radio stations
- Digital Terrestrial Television
- ABS-CBN News Channel
- ABS-CBN Global
- Star Cinema
- Kidzania
Staff within these subsidiaries composed of project- and program-based positions, on-camera talents, independent contractors, and regular employees.
Aside from the 11,000 employees of ABS-CBN, Nepomuceno also emphasized the employees hired by the third-party agencies as cleaners, utility men, and security guards will also be greatly affected if the network will not be granted with its 25-year franchise.
Nepomuceno continued: “This figure does not yet include jobs indirectly produced by the company through its hiring of third-party agencies such as security guards, cleaners and utility men among others. These people and their families and the public we serve, remain our inspiration in undergoing this franchise renewal process.”
Even after ABS-CBN clarified the issue of the number of employees it has on its roster, Mocha Uson still seems intent on spreading fake news about the matter. On her Facebook, Uson claimed that ABS-CBN only paid the withholding tax of 4,000 employees when it claimed that it had 11,000.
Uson made the post even after the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) clarified that ABS-CBN had no tax deficiencies.