Supreme Court Orders ABS-CBN To Comment On SolGen Franchise Revocation Plea
ABS-CBN – The Supreme Court gave the media company ABS-CBN ten days to comment on Solicitor General Jose Calida’s plea.
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte accused the country’s leading broadcast network, ABS-CBN, of refusing to air his political advertisements in the 2016 election and biased reporting. He even told the executives to just sell the company. Several celebrities have appealed to the president to allow the network to renew its franchise. They are Lea Salonga, Robin Padilla, and Sharon Cuneta.
In January, House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano said they have enough time to discuss the issue of the network’s franchise. He also vowed that the House of Representatives will be fair in considering their application.
Yesterday, Solicitor General Jose Calida asked the Supreme Court to cancel the ABS-CBN’s franchise renewal. He claimed that the broadcasting company engages in “highly abusive practices” that attacks the government just like Rappler and allowing foreigners to “take part in the ownership of a Philippine mass media entity.”
“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… These practices have gone unnoticed or were disregarded for years,” he said.
Today, February 11, the Supreme Court issued a directive order for the tv network to comment on SolGen Jose Calida’s franchise revocation plea based on a report from CNN. The high court gave ABS-CBN ten (10) days to comment on the plea.
“The Supreme Court in today’s en banc session, required the respondents to file their comment to the said petition for quo warranto within a non-extendible period of 10 days from receipt of notice,” SC said in the statement.
According to the report, the quo warranto petition filed against ABS-CBN Convergence Inc, ABS-CBN Corporation and its subsidiary came weeks before the company’s existing franchise is set to expire on March 30, 2020.
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