[PODCAST] Law of Duterte Land: ABS-CBN and the 3 tangled branches of government

MANILA, Philippines – Embattled broadcast giant ABS-CBN is back to square one after the House of Representatives withdrew the bill that would have given the network a 5-month provisional franchise.

The Supreme Court also has not issued an immediate relief, after it gave as long as 15 days to the Senate, the House and the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to answer ABS-CBN’s petition to stop the shutdown.

All this means is that ABS-CBN is still off the air indefinitely, as the network loses P30 million to P35 million for every day that it cannot broadcast. ABS-CBN President and CEO Carlo Katigbak said they may start to lay off some people by August if it cannot resume operations by then.

In this issue, the 3 branches of government – the executive, the legislative and the judiciary – are tangled.

Are they being prudent to protect the laws and the Constitution, or is each branch just passing the buck to avoid making the tough decision?

Listen to this podcast with inputs from the congressional testimonies of former chief justice Reynato Puno and former senate president Juan Ponce Enrile.

We also talked to President Rodrigo Duterte’s former government corporate counsel, Rudolf Jurado, who said that to require ABS-CBN to give 10% of its total ad airtime free of charge to the government would violate the constitutional guarantee to just compensation.

Listen to past episodes:

• Episode 1 Part 1: Supreme Court’s most controversial decisions
• Episode 1 Part 2: Department of Justice’s evolving definition of warrantless arrests
  
• Episode 2: The rule of law in the time of the coronavirus
  
• Episode 3: Pandemic and the great wall of free speech
• Episode 4: Will petition to disclose Duterte health work?
• Episode 5: Legal difficulties of a prisoner mass release
• Episode 6: Breaking down the ABS-CBN franchise legal and political issues

If you have tips and suggestions for episodes, email the host at lian.buan@rappler.com. – Rappler.com