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ABS-CBN Franchise Issue: Press Freedom is a Right, Access to a TV Frequency/Platform is a Privilege

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ABS-CBN Franchise Issue: Press Freedom is a Right, Access to a TV Frequency/Platform is a Privilege

No, the ABS-CBN Franchise Renewal Issue arises not from Free Speech or Press Freedom as defined in the Constitution, but from Public Services as defined in the Public Services Law [0].

That is, the issue is not whether ABS-CBN should have the right to Free Speech (it will always have that right), but whether ABS-CBN should be allowed to use one of a very limited number of TV frequencies available.

Every free-to-air TV or radio station is required to secure a congressional franchise in the form of a Republic Act, a franchise that usually lasts for 25 years [1]. After this period, a network requires a new franchise, a new Republic Act, to continue operations.

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ABS-CBN received its latest 25-year congressional franchise on 30 March 1995 via Republic Act No. 7966 [2]. Hence, the network needs to get a new franchise before RA 7966 expires 25 years later on 30 March 2020.

And that’s the problem.

The Philippine Constitution guarantees Press Freedom, but it doesn’t guarantee access to broadcast frequencies because they’re severely limited by Science.

In the case of TV, there are at most 12 available VHF channels (Channels 2, 3, to 13) and at most 38 in the UHF band (Channels 14 to 51) [3].

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Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders / RSF recognizes this reality when it wrote [1]:

“Licensing became necessary as broadcast frequencies constitute a scarce resource… In Metro Manila for example, the frequency is limited to 23 physical spots for TV channels… and they are all taken at the moment.”

The TV firm ABS-CBN, by virtue of Press Freedom, has the right to create and distribute content, but it has no inalienable right to broadcast over the VHF Channel 2 Frequency.

If access to a TV frequency is an inalienable right of every Filipino, then every Filipino should have his own TV channel. Now, how do you divide the 23 TV frequencies in Metro Manila among its over 10 million residents?

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That’s impossible, hence the need for Congressional Franchises, meaning the government has the authority to decide which TV broadcaster wannabes are in the best position to serve Public Interest.

ABS-CBN’s dominion over Channel 2 means somebody else didn’t get it, and that dominion is a privilege granted through an Act of Congress.

Even without a Congressional Franchise, ABS-CBN may still broadcast over the internet, syndicate its content, or do pretty much whatever it wants EXCEPT broadcast via VHF/UHF TV frequencies.

In short, the Constitution guarantees Press Freedom, but it DOES NOT guarantee access to TV frequencies.

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SOURCES:

[0] Commonwealth Act 146. Public Service Law (as amended, and as modified particularly by PD No. 1, Integrated Reorganization Plan and EO 546). http://bit.ly/2ZN1kL4

[1] Media Ownership Monitor Philippines – Reporters without Borders. How to get a media license. http://bit.ly/2Qq7EFz

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[2] Congress of the Philippines. An Act Granting the ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation a Franchise to Construct, Install, Operate and Maintain Television and Radio Broadcasting Stations in the Philippines, and for other purposes. RA No. 7966. 30 March 1995. http://bit.ly/2QKK1WX

[3] Government of the Philippines – Department of Information and Communication Technology. Framework of the Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting (DTTB) Migration Plan. October 2017. page iii. http://bit.ly/35m61N5

(c) Thinking Pinoy

Opinion:

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Tita Nepomuceno : Free speech even they’re lies? Free speech even if they confuse the minds of filipinos, rather than enlighten them of the truth? Free speech to destroy the integrity of people they don’t want? Use press freedom to be partial to some sectors? Press freedom to operate and earn insurmountable profit without paying taxes? And here is ABS-CBN crying out that their free speech or press freedom is being supressed? ABS-CBN’s meaning of press freedom is as twisted as the minds of the people running the network.

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Bentahan ng Kidneys o Bato Online, Dumadami dahil sa kawalan ng trabaho at hirap ng Buhay

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Bentahan ng Kidneys o Bato Online, Dumadami dahil sa kawalan ng trabaho at hirap ng Buhay

BENTAHAN NG KIDNEYS O BATO ONLINE, DUMADAMI DAHIL SA KAWALAN NG TRABAHO AT HIRAP NG BUHAY NGAYONG PANDEMIC..

“Wala akong trabaho simula nang nag-lockdown. Wala akong sariling pera pambili ng pagkain. Kaya naisipan kong ibenta ‘yung kidney ko. Nasa P300,000 to P500,000 ang bentahan. Alam kong bawal, pero ite-take ko ang risk. Hindi ako matatakot magbenta ng kidney kahit pandemic ngayon. Dahil kailangan ng pamilya ko. Dahil wala na kaming makain.”

– “Macoy”

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Ibebenta mo ba ang iyong kindey sa ibang tao dahil sa hirap ng buhay? 

 

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source : gma news

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ABS-CBN, communist rallies worsened Covid-19 – Rigoberto Tiglao (Manila Times)

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ABS-CBN, communist rallies worsened Covid-19 - Rigoberto Tiglao (Manila Times)

I don’t think there’s any doubt that the rallies of ABS-CBN Corp.’s talents and staff as well as those by communist-led activists against the Anti-Terrorism Law and even President Rodrigo Duterte’s State of the Nation Address (SONA), helped worsen the pandemic that we thought we had started to put under control.

The only question is how much these contributed to the surge: coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases rose from 37,500 on June 30 to 98,232 on August 2; in the same period, 1,266 deaths to 2,039; and hospitalizations, from 6,238 to 8,729.

Of course, there were other factors that swelled the pandemic. Palace spokesman Harry Roque Jr. has pointed out one factor — that many asymptomatic or mild cases were not really quarantined, but merely stayed home, infecting their families.

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But the surge in cases to 118 reported at University of the Philippines Diliman, a rich recruitment ground for rallyists to the nearby ABS-CBN headquarters and to the Batasang Pambansa, and the fact that Quezon City, together with Cebu City, make up the epicenters of the pandemic in the country, bolster the analysis that the demonstrations were Covid-19 super-spreaders.

It would have been magnanimous, even heroic, if the oligarchic House of Lopez had called on their serfs to desist from undertaking rallies, as these put them and others at a very high risk of contracting the disease.

But no, ABS-CBN’s lower ranking officials were leading the rallies inside and outside their headquarters. The higher ranking officials of course were nowhere to be found at the rallies.

ABS-CBN President Carlo Katigbak cheered on the demonstrators, but of course, cleverly, only from his chauffeur-driven Land Cruiser as it drove by the rallyists, its windows opening only intermittently. There is even a rumor that Gabby Lopez, the top Lopez honcho who the clan put in charge of ABS-CBN, had managed to leave the country, in time for his usual birthday celebration in the land of his birth.

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It was a crime for ABS-CBN and its echo chamber Rappler (whose Chief Executive Officer Maria Ressa, like Katigbak, cleverly avoided the rallies) to report again and again, with so many photos, that the entertainment network’s stars were joining the rallies, their pictures showing them without masks, and even shoulder-to-shoulder with the rallyists. And to think they are role models, whether we like it or not: “The Probinsyano doesn’t wear a mask. I don’t either.”

As the Lopez strategists likely planned, their stars being in the rallies got hundreds of their fans, many from the lower-class districts in Quezon City, to rush to ABS-CBN, expecting that they could fulfill their dreams of hobnobbing with, even touching, their idols.

How many of them could now be in wards in QC hospitals, which have become overcrowded with Covid patients? How many did they, after being infected in the ABS-CBN rallies, infect others in their crowded communities?

It was criminal neglect for QC Mayor Josefina Belmonte not to have prevented legally or through persuasion the ABS-CBN rallies. Didn’t the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) on the pandemic specifically ban public gatherings in which category the ABS-CBN rallies could have been put into?

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I’ve been to hundreds of rallies as a participant in my youth and observer as a journalist. I can’t think of a more perfect distribution center for epidemics.

Rally participants are forced to violate either all at the same time or consecutively the four things Covid-19 experts say are absolutely necessary to contain the epidemic: 1) wear face masks in public; 2) physically distance yourself from others by at least 1 meter; 3) avoid crowds; and 4) wash your hands vigorously and avoid touching your face. One can’t help touching each other somehow in such crowds.

Do you think the rallyists never took off or lowered from their noses the masks after an hour or two under the hot sun? They wear masks, they touch each other so often in such crowds. Would anyone really be able to tell a fellow rallyist to stay away from him by 1 meter? How on earth could they have washed their hands during the rally?

As epidemiologists have also emphasized, a scenario that spreads the disease is one in which there is a lot of shouting, as droplets containing the virus are projected much further when these come from someone hollering, especially with passion, “Oust Duterte!” which is done not just by the speakers, but also by the rallyists.

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Worse, after the rally, many of them —now infected — would have of course used public transport, where they infected helpless commuters coming from a hard day’s work.

Full-time activists, especially communist urban cadres, would be super-spreaders of the diseases. As “NPAs” (no permanent addresses), they move and sleep from one safehouse to another to meet with comrades indoors to do their DGs (discussion groups) or to hand down the orders from the “nakatataas.” As full-timers living frugally, as Mao’s Little Red Book enjoins them, they have the minimum hygienic standards, and are forced by circumstances to wear the same clothes (or the de rigueur jacket) for days and even weeks.

If the virus was attached to their jacket from a rally, that would be Covid-19’s base of operations for days, one that moves from place to place, even all over metropolitan Manila.

Government should implement the IATF-EID ban on public gatherings, even if the demonstrators claim these are political assemblies guaranteed by the Constitution. Better martial law than dead or sick people under a lively democracy.

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Let them ask the Supreme Court to rule whether such legislation is illegal or not. By the time the high court hands down its ruling, which will be several months after, this pandemic would likely have been contained.

How stupid of us. We have imposed curfews to discourage gatherings. We have to queue at supermarket and drugstore entrances so only a small number of people are inside for a certain period for the sake of physical distancing. Travel has banned from one province to another, separating families for months. Masks and temperature checks are required to enter supermarkets and malls.

Yet we allow rallies, even those undertaken for an oligarch’s sake, where people don’t wear masks, stand shoulder-to-shoulder, shouting old slogans that project virus-laden droplets all around — the perfect distribution center for Covid-19.

Damn you, Yellow zombies, Lopezites and communists. You helped Covid-19 kill a thousand more Filipinos. And now we may have to suffer another lockdown, which would throw more Filipinos out of jobs and into hunger.

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I won’t argue anymore, and instead present the photos of these rallies that, as the cliché goes, speak a thousand words.

Email: tiglao.manilatimes@gmail.com
Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao
Twitter: @bobitiglao
Book orders: www.rigobertotiglao.com/debunked

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Discipline is going to save us from this Pandemic – Mayor Richard Gomez

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Discipline is going to save us from this Pandemic - Mayor Richard Gomez

Disiplina umano ang magliligtas sa panahon ng pandemya! Dahil ang problema kasi sa mga tao, nakikipag siksikan, hindi sumusunod sa mga patakaran na para naman sa kanilang kabutihan.

Ang pandemya ay naging leksyon sa ating lahat lalo na sa mga lugar na subra ang populasyon lalo na sa metro manila.

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