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.
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