Department of Finance seeks investors for RPN-9, IBC-13

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Finance under Secretary Cesar Purisima is taking charge of the plan to have two sequestered television stations privatized before 2013.

Secretary Herminio Coloma of the Presidential Communications Office for Operations said the privatization of RPN-9 and IBC-13 is underway, and that the financial problems of the main government network NBN-4 are already being addressed.

“The privatization effort is being pursued, in coordination with Secretary Cesar Purisima,” Coloma told news anchor Joe Taruc over radio station dzRH.

Purisima, according to Coloma, heads the government’s privatization council.

Coloma, under whose jurisdiction the government media networks fall, said their policy direction is geared toward privatization of RPN-9 and IBC-13, which has been delayed for more than 10 years.

The target date for privatization of the two stations would be within two or three years. “It’s a priority program,” Coloma said, adding that the government only intends to retain one channel, NBN-4.

Coloma, as press secretary, had expressed his intention of making NBN-4 at par with the BBC, the government-run TV network in the United Kingdom.

He assured the public that unlike the previous administrations, the Aquino government is determined to see through its privatization plan for the two sequestered networks, citing a specific timetable for it.

IBC-13 has a new board of directors and its management team is now headed by Eric Canoy. No sweeping management changes have occurred in RPN-9, which Coloma said is operating efficiently.

A new management team has taken over NBN-4, and Coloma said they are now working “to restore the financial wellness” of Channel 4.

He said improving the financial health of the station should come first before new programs are introduced.

Privatizing will not be easy though, since ownership of these stations is still being contested in the courts. In 1986, then President Corazon Aquino seized the two TV networks on suspicion that they were part of the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses.

“The two stations are not in the best situation. They have to constitute new boards of directors but the President will nominate them,” Coloma said earlier.

Appointments to the two networks require the nod of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, which is under President Aquino.

“These stations were sequestered after the EDSA Revolution in 1986 - a long time passed already but there’s still no closure to the issue,” he said.