President Rodrigo Duterte has been the biggest hurdle for the renewal of ABS-CBN broadcast franchise.
As early as 2017, Duterte has been at the forefront of attacks against the network publicly declaring his opposition to the renewal of the Kapamilya network’s franchise.
A few months into his presidency, Duterte immediately launched the attack against ABS-CBN and the Lopezes whom he accused of swindling him.
Durterte alleged that ABS-CBN did not air a paid political advertisement during his Presidential campaign.
“If ganoon ka kaano, you’re engaged in swindling for all we know ilang kompanya dito na hindi n’yo pinalabas. If you operate, ABS-CBN, tapos manloloko lang kayo ng tao, mag-swindling kayo, I have to stop you, ‘di ba?” Duterte said in April 2017.
ABS-CBN however during the franchise hearing said that they did not deliberately refuse the ad, but there were really no more spots available thus it wasn’t aired.
“Our policy on all our ads is first-come, first-served. Many of these spots were ordered on May 3, and May 7 was the last day of the campaign period. There had been many previous telecast orders that came in ahead,” said ABS-CBN President and CEO Carlo Katigbak.
Katigbak also clarified that the majority of the payment was already returned to Duterte’s camp but there were a few million which got delayed that the Duterte camp refused to accept.
Duterte also attacked ABS-CBN using the issue on the Lopez Group’s DBP loans. According to Duterte, ABS-CBN did not pay a single centavo to the government which has since become DDS’s propaganda in pounding ABS-CBN during the height of the franchise renewal hearing.
“The Lopez Group of Companies never paid a single centavo. It was condoned by the government. Who condoned it, who authorized it, I really don’t know, but maybe one of these days I’ll start to dig,” Duterte said in front of new government appointees,” Duterte said in September 2019
In his latest pronouncements, Duterte still insisted on the issue saying he will never implement any franchise if the company will not pay its dues to the government.
“For all I care, you can have a 1,000 franchise, you will not see the light of day until you come to government with clean hands. Wala akong galit, bayaran mo lang ang gobyerno, sasaludo ako sa inyo limang beses,” he said.
However, the government’s tax bureau BIR and the state-owned bank DBP have already cleared ABS-CBN of any obligations.
“ABS-CBN Corporation ay regularly paying taxes for the past years. Na-check naman po na ‘yung dapat nilang i-withhold at na-remit naman nila sa gobyerno,” Mapoy said during the hearing.
“From 2003 to 2019, ABS-CBN as a group paid P71.5 billion in taxes,” Mapoy added.
Meanwhile, DBP also recently cleared the Lopez Group of any liability. According to DBP Vice President Soraya Adiong, the questioned loan has been audited by the COA and there were no findings of irregularity.
“It was audited by the Commission on Audit and in the annual audit report, there was no finding of irregularity,” said DBP Senior Vice President Soraya Adiong.
“As soon as the accounts were transferred to the SPV (special purpose vehicles) DBP no longer had any transaction, at least with respect to those four loan accounts,” Adiong added.
DBP President Emmanuel Herbosa on the other hand also clarified that the controversial loan was not condoned or written off but was instead sold to Lehman Brothers as per Republic Act No. 9182 or the SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) Act of 2002.
“These NPLs (non-performing loans) and NPAs (non-performing assets) were dealt with in the regular course of business and disposed of by DBP pursuant to Republic Act No. 9182, entitled The Special Purpose Vehicles Act of 2002, as amended by RA No. 9343 and other applicable laws, which authorized financial institutions, like DBP to transfer NPLs and NPAs to SPVs (special purpose vehicles) created under the Act.
“The law provided the avenue for Philippine banks to dispose [of] non-performing assets to be more liquid…. It’s not a loan condonation, we sold it with a P3.83-billion bid in favor of DBP,” said Herbosa.
With these clarifications from several government agencies regarding ABS-CBN and the Lopez Group, will Duterte finally stop his tirade against the network or will he bring up another issue to justify his opposition to an ABS-CBN comeback?
