The process of getting a congressional franchise can be best described as like traveling through the South Luzon Expressway. There's a gatekeeper every stage of the way, all of them politicians. It starts from the Congress Secretariat (which receives the application), the Rules Committee (which sets it on the agenda for referral) to the Committee on Legislative Franchises (which discusses the bill), until it is passed by the House, then the Senate (where it goes through the counterpart committees), and sent to Malacanang for the signature of the President.
The crucial part is with the Committee on Legislative Franchises, which is such a popular house committee, sometimes 2/3s of Congress comprise this singular committee. When I once worked on something like this for a client, we had to deal with 150 congressmen. Every one of them had the power to delay the proceedings of a franchise application by a mere oral motion to defer regardless of any reason. In my case, a congressman from NCR did it in the middle of a hearing, and my client had to maneuver to get him to retract his motion. In the case of ABS-CBN, you can imagine how congressmen, some of whom cheated their way to get there (just look at the number of election protests pending), would take this is as a political or business opportunity. But assuming it gets approved in the House, it has to hurdle the same process in the Senate.
In my case, our application had an easier time with the Senate Committee on Legislative Franchises then under the late Senator Joker Arroyo, but when it was already before the Senate plenary, a senator from the south who was always absent in our morning hearings (the guy had trouble waking up early) wanted to insert something, and so it was recalled until his amendments could be put in. It had to be a late afternoon hearing to accommodate him. I really don’t mind, but it shows how important one Senate vote is in this process.
After the franchise application is successfully passed in the Senate (this after, the Bicameral Committee has reconciled their versions), the bill is then sent to Malacanang. Usually, the President doesn't act on franchises, so they just lapse into law after thirty days. Of course, we all know how Duterte sort of insinuated that he was going to veto any such ABS-CBN franchise if it ever gets to his office.
I think the real issue here is why do we ask our broadcasting companies to go through that hell? We all know how crucial a broadcasting company is to the political careers of our politicians. Asking our media companies to get the approval of politicians is like putting them at the mercy of the very people who can use them for their political ends. It makes broadcasting companies vulnerable, which may compromise their integrity.
There is an untold story on this ABS-CBN saga and nobody is brave enough to tell it. But in any case, if any revolution is forthcoming (which I doubt), this provision of law asking broadcast companies to get a franchise from Congress should be deleted.
For Coach Jude Roque who asked.
