Presidential candidate Bato dela Rosa admitted that he is willing to support ABS-CBN’s bid for a franchise if issues thrown at the network are appropriately addressed.
To recall, the ABS-CBN network was forced to shut down in July 2020 after lawmakers voted to deny the network’s franchise bid.
Some of the issues raised include the citizenship of the network’s chairman emeritus Gabby Lopez, alleged labor violations, tax evasion, and alleged political bias, among others.
According to INQUIRER, dela Rosa said that it is still the function of Congress to approve the network’s franchise and not the president.
“It’s too early to tell. kung makalusot yan sa both houses of the Congress at nakita ko na na-address properly and exhaustively and satisfactorily lahat ng issues na binabato sa ABS-CBN, bakit hindi ko pipirmahan?” dela Rosa said.
“Pipirmahan ko ‘yan basta satisfied ako sa lahat ng pag-deliberate sa issues. Masagot ‘yung lahat ng issues, bakit di ko pipirmahan? Pero kung hindi satisfactorily ma-address lahat ng issues, then baka magda-dalawang-isip ako,” he added.
The shutdown of ABS-CBN forced the network to retrench more than 11 thousand of its employees.
Dela Rosa previously made the headlines after netizens slammed him for saying that the retrenched employees should just look for other jobs.
As ABS-CBN sealed a deal with ZOE Network to be able to broadcast some of their programs, some of the retrenched employees are slowly returning to work.
Despite the lack of a franchise, the ABS-CBN network was recently deemed as the “Best TV Station” in the 34th Star Awards for Television held virtually by the Philippine Movie Press Club (PMPC) last Sunday (October 17).
