The Philippine government yesterday urged the Supreme Court of the Philippines to cancel the franchises of the country’s top broadcaster, ABS-CBN Corp, a move that opposition lawmakers and rights advocates called intimidation of independent media.
The government said that the 66-year-old entertainment and media conglomerate had violated ownership laws and was involved in “highly abusive practices.”
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s opponents said that the complaint was timed to deny the Philippine Congress the chance to renew the franchise of ABS-CBN, which employs nearly 7,000 people and engages hundreds of celebrities in radio, television and online content.
Philippine Solicitor-General Jose Calida said that ABS-CBN had for too long shown greed and abuse of what was a privileged franchise.
“We want to put an end to what we discovered to be highly abusive practices of ABS-CBN benefiting a greedy few at the expense of millions of its loyal subscribers,” Calida said in a statement.
ABS-CBN denied that and said the complaint appeared to be “an effort to shut down ABS-CBN to the serious prejudice of millions of Filipinos.”
Duterte has accused ABS-CBN of refusing to air his campaign commercials.
ABS-CBN has not directly responded to Duterte’s claims, but its chairman, Eugenio Lopez, said at the company stockholders’ meeting in 2017 that it was “part and parcel of our work being a media institution.”
In 2018, the government revoked the license of Rappler, a news Web site that Duterte called a “fake news outlet” sponsored by US spies.
Rappler still operates pending appeal.
Calida said that ABS-CBN started a pay-per-view channel without approval and charges fees not supposed to be levied.
Like Rappler, ABS-CBN had breached foreign ownership restrictions behind an “elaborately crafted corporate veil,” he said.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS