ABS-CBN signs off

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

People feared it but did not expect it would come. The cessation of the ABS-CBN broadcast was done at a time when people are tuned in to every media outlet, including the social media listening to the latest developments in the pandemic. The order to close was untimely and undermines the government’s call for unity in the face of a crisis.

But as the National Telecommunications Commission that issued the order for the national network to stop broadcast said, nobody is above the law although people know others are beyond the law.

It is generally believed that the difficulties of the network were due to the public criticisms and threats of the President. He has a solid reason to be angry for what the network did to him during the elections and the network apologized. But it seems the apology was not enough, and the signal was sent to the President’s allies in the House that was construed as an order that the President did not want ABS-CBN to continue its business. It was easy for the President’s allies who controlled the majority in the House to simply sit on the bills extending the network’s franchise.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque on Wednesday defended the President and absolved him from blame. He said President Duterte could not overturn the NTC decision and he was now taking a “neutral” position regarding the network’s franchise long pending in the House of Representatives. Several bills were filed since last year extending the franchise, but they all gathered dust there.

He explained that the President could not certify the franchise bill as urgent as suggested by Sen. Sonny Angara, because it was a bill that would grant privileges to a private company.

Roque likewise said the President had already accepted an apology from the network owners, referring to Duterte’s complaints against ABS-CBN for airing a negative propaganda against him and for not using his campaign advertisement during the 2016 presidential polls.

“He kept on reiterating…that he really is neutral and to let his allies (in Congress) know that he will not hold it against them, and it will not endear him either way. They can vote as they wish,” Roque said.

But the deed has been done and the President’s allies wanting to prove their loyalty to him did not consider the President’s apparent change of heart but what the original signal was. Then the pandemic intervened and the death knell for ABS-CBN took its inexorable path.

Now the politicians play a blame game and a group of economic reform advocates, the Action for Economic Reforms was reported yesterday by Inquirer Net  to have denounced on Wednesday what it called the “arbitrary cease-and-desist” order issued by the NTC against television network ABS-CBN. “Such politically motivated action undermines the whole-of-society effort to beat COVID-19,” the AER said.

They held the House leadership, specifically Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, accountable for delaying the network’s franchise renewal, making him “complicit in the conspiracy to close down ABS-CBN” and assailed the NTC for “bowing to political pressure.”

“This action of closing down ABS-CBN sends a signal that the administration does not care about national unity and is more concerned about political vendetta,” the group said, adding that the Filipino people will suffer the most.

On the other hand, Cayetano blamed his colleagues and congressmen lambasted their fellows for what Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza, who was “forced to apologize publicly” for the “failure of Congress to do its job.”

“This is our fault. This is the fault of Congress. More important, I would like to say squarely — this is Speaker Cayetano’s fault.”

Well, Cayetano is blaming the committees as if he were helpless with the Committees. We see a charade in this blame game because Congress had months to act and even if the President had already said he had apologized the congressmen did not act fast, giving the impression that there was instruction to get ABS-CBN off the air. By whom? Can the NTC be blamed for enforcing the law? Could the NTC have suspended action while the country is reeling under the pandemic and every media network was needed to keep the nation informed and instructed?

The ABS-CBN has accepted its fate. It was off the air when martial law was declared in 1972. It waited and returned under a new government.