Still missing ABS-CBN

By Herbert Vego

SOMETIME this year during a chance meeting with former ABS-CBN TV newscaster Nony Basco at Hotel del Rio, I greeted him warmly over its “reopening” as a franchised mainstream network.

“Not true” was his answer.

I was to learn later that no less than ABS-CBN president Carlo Katigbak had already debunked the rumor, since its radio and TV frequencies had already been awarded to other applicants.

However, it has regained popularity primarily as a content producer and distributor for other networks and digital platforms like YouTube and Facebook.

Then, too, there’s ANC News (short for ABS-CBN News Channel), which airs breaking news, business updates, and public affairs programs to audiences in the Philippines and abroad.

It has been five and a half years since May 2020 when the House Committee on Legislative Franchises voted to deny ABS-CBN’s franchise renewal based on the pretext news that it had not been paying taxes.

The other version of the story was that then President Rodrigo Duterte had influenced Congress to junk the franchise for failure of the network to air his campaign ads for the 2016 presidential election.

The alibi presented by the majority of congressmen was the act of then Solicitor General Jose Calida, who had filed a quo warranto petition against ABS-CBN on the pretext that its franchise was “void from the beginning due to violations of law.”

Calida had first used the same tool that led to the ouster of former Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno.

Closure, though, is nothing new to ABS-CBN. The late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. shut it down immediately after declaring martial law in September 1972 but later allowed it to resume with “friendlier” commentators.

Meanwhile, let me share nuggets of memories about radio broadcasting. I was three years old when my late father brought home a radio set in 1953.  The first “music” that I heard on the radio was “Mambo Magsaysay,” the campaign jingle of then presidential candidate Ramon Magsaysay, who was running against re-electionist President Elpidio Quirino.

There were four Manila-based radio stations heard loud and clear in our barangay in Antique in that decade: DZRH, DZBB, DZXL and DZAQ.

Radio station DZXL was originally owned by Chronicle Broadcasting Network (CBN), and so was Channel 9 TV.

DZXL now belongs to Radio Mindanao Network (RMN).

DZAQ and Channel 3 were the radio and TV stations of Alto Broadcasting System (ABS).

To stop cut-throat competition, ABS and CBN merged into one network in 1967 to be known as  ABS-CBN.

-oOo-

FIGHTING FIRE IS EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS

WHENEVER fire hits Iloilo City, linemen from MORE Power make it appoint to work with firemen forthwith, as they did at Zone 11, Calaparan last Sunday.

In fact, the local government of Iloilo City under Mayor Raisa Treñas has been implementing its Integrated Approach to Fire Prevention program in cooperation with MORE Power, Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), and concerned stakeholders.

To prevent fires due to illegal connections, a team– consisting of representatives of the city engineer’s office and office of the building official of the city government, safety officers and community relations officers of MORE Power, and personnel of the BFP — regularly inspects the barangays.

Each visit includes a lecture and inspection covering secondary lines, service drops, and metering facilities.

Sad to say, many fire incidents in the city result from electrical problems, such as illegal connections, tapping, unauthorized load side connections, and substandard wirings that lead to overloading.