- Cayetano defended the 10% ads provision.
The House of Representatives is requiring 10% of ABS-CBN advertisements to be allotted to government use in their ABS-CBN Provisional Franchise bill.
The House bill was sponsored by Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano together with seven other House leaders. It aims to grant the media network a 5-month provisional franchise while Congress is still deliberating on its 25-year franchise bills.
Under Section 4 on the Responsibility to the Public of the House Bill (HB) No. 6732, ABS-CBN would need to dedicate “adequate public service time” in its broadcasting stations to allow the government to relay “important public issues,” especially in times of calamities.
However, a similar provision is also found in the laws that renewed the franchises of two other major broadcast networks, GMA-7 under Republic Act (RA) No. 10925 and TV5 Network under RA 11320, which were approved in 2016 and 2018, respectively.
Under Section 4 of both RAs 10925 and 11320 reads: “Public service time referred herein shall be equivalent to 10% of the paid commercials or advertisements which shall be allocated based on the need to the executive-legislative, judiciary, constitutional commissions, and international humanitarian organizations duly recognized by statutes.”
Cayetano defended the 10% ads provision
Meanwhile, Speaker Alan Cayetano defended the 10% ads saying it will greatly help the government in reaching more people.
“[It will be] easier and more pragmatic for [the] government to be able to reach the segments of society who tune in to the shows,” he said.
“And lastly, if you look at the profits of our giant networks, the 10% will not affect their bottom line, will not affect their stock market prices, will not affect severely their income, but it will give a great advantage to the government to be able to communicate with our people directly,” he added.
Cayetano also responded to questions of its unconstitutionality pertaining to equal protection of the laws.
“I’m willing to submit this to our legal. But may I just stipulate my personal stand that all franchises should have this if the argument is equal protection. The solution is not to take it out of this provision,” the Speaker said.
The speaker was responding to Rep. Rufus Rodriguez’s statements that there were franchise laws that do not have the same provisions citing the cases of Republic Act (RA) No. 11339 for Cebu Broadcasting Company, RA 11193 for Malindang Broadcasting Network Corporation, and RA 11205 for The Deus Amor Est Broadcasting Inc.
Cayetano, however, said that they are of different nature since those cased involved provincial TV and radio stations.
“On the legal side, I think the gentleman from Cagayan de Oro will agree with me that equal protection of the law, the concept says that the law has to be equally applied to those who are similarly situated. In the franchises that you have mentioned, they are either radio, or if they are TV, they are regional or provincial,” Cayetano said.
Currently, ABS-CBN’s provisional franchise bill has yet to hurdle the House of Representatives.
In Monday’s session, the bill was recalled for 2nd reading as some congressmen debated on several issues.
Meanwhile, ABS-CBN is losing millions by the day that they are not operating.
In a tweet by ABS-CBN News via Tarra Quismundo, ABS-CBN News head Ging Reyes said the network is losing 35 million per day since it stopped broadcasting on Tuesday, May 5.
Reyes said it during the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines’ online rally in against ABS-CBN shutdown.
