Some congressional leaders are vainly pushing a dubious empty bag to ABS-CBN Corporation by suggesting that the network can secure a provisional authority from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) even after the expiration of the effectivity of its legislative franchise.
The NTC cannot on its own resurrect an expired legislative franchise by granting a former grantee a “provisional authority to operate”.
The reasons proffered by Speaker Alan Cayetano for foot-dragging on the renewal of the franchise of ABS-CBN are not so overriding as to sacrifice the freedoms of the press and expression for expediency.
Speaker Cayetano said that time is not of the essence because after the expiration of ABS-CBN’s franchise on March 30, 2020, it can continue operations by securing a provisional authority from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) as long as the 18th Congress has not adjourned sine die.
The petition for quo warranto filed by the Office of the Solicitor General before the Supreme Court against ABS-CBN Corporation and its subsidiary ABS-CBN Convergence, Inc. is unwarranted and misplaced for the following reasons:
Rep. Edcel C. Lagman announced today that the three divorce bills have been approved by the Committee on Population and Family Relations for consolidation by a technical working group led by Lagman who is the principal author of House Bill No. 100, which is the first bill on divorce filed in the 18th Congress.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s order banning the entry of Chinese nationals coming from Hubei Province, whose capital city of Wuhan is the epicenter of the novel coronavirus, is patently superfluous because the subject area has earlier been on lockdown or placed on quarantine by Chinese authorities preventing the exit of people.
What is imperative is to ban flights to and from the entire Chinese mainland, including Hong Kong.
