MANILA, Philippines – A ranking official of the House of Representatives filed a bill seeking to give ABS-CBN a fresh franchise, nearly five years since the chamber under the government of Rodrigo Duterte denied its bid to have its license renewed.

Ways and means chairperson Joey Salceda is not the first person to seek a new franchise for the once-media giant, but it came after a two-year lull, when the start of the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration prompted some lawmakers to file measures aimed at fully reviving ABS-CBN’s presence on free television.

“The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Bureau of Internal Revenue, during House deliberations on the ABS-CBN franchise in the previous Congress, certified that the franchise grantee did not violate ownership restrictions and did not have pending tax liabilities,” Salceda said in the explanatory note of House Bill No. 11252, filed on Tuesday, January 7.

“Given the merits of renewing the franchise, as well as the clarifications made by government agencies over certain allegations against the grantee, this representation urges Congress to reconsider the non-renewal of the franchise by the previous Congress,” he added.

Duterte’s grudge ABS-CBN, after the network aired an anti-Duterte campaign ad in 2016, is widely believed to have been the reason why the House, composed of his allies, killed its franchise application.

In May 2020, the National Telecommunications Commission shut down ABS-CBN after its 25-year franchise granted in May 1995 expired. The House, in July 2020, voted against the renewal of ABS-CBN’s franchise.

Various groups in the Philippines and abroad saw ABS-CBN’s shutdown as a critical attack on press freedom in the country. It also prompted the company to retrench thousands of employees at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

When a new batch of lawmakers convened in June 2022, various lawmakers filed bills seeking to renew ABS-CBN’s franchise, such as Johnny Pimentel, France Castro, Arlene Brosas, Raoul Manuel, Rufus Rodriguez, and Gabriel Bordado. All the measures have languished at the committee level.

Since the closure, ABS-CBN has pivoted to content creation, distributing its programs to various platforms, and collaborating even with former media rivals.

It has also sold most of its broadcast assets to other networks, saying in its latest report to the Philippine Stock Exchange in early 2024 that it does not “intend to buy back any of the assets it sold.” – Rappler.com