MANILA, Philippines — When Typhoon Ambo battered Aurora Province in mid-May, a cop manning a checkpoint posed this question to ABS-CBN news reporter Jeff Canoy: "Babalik na ba kayo sir?"
By then, ABS-CBN’s 43 channels, including flagship and free Channel 2, had been ordered off the air for ten days.
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On July 10, members of the House of Representatives lawmaker dashed the hopes of the embattled media network to resume broadcasting. In a lopsided vote of 70-11, the House Committee on Legislative Franchises rejected ABS-CBN’s bid for a fresh legislative franchise. Three members of the panel opted not to vote.
READ: House panel denies ABS-CBN franchise | List of lawmakers who voted for and against ABS-CBN franchise renewal
Sociology professor Mario “Mayong” Aguja told Philstar.com that not only did lawmakers vote to deprive thousands of Filipinos of jobs during a pandemic — ABS-CBN has announced layoffs and pay cuts — but have also helped create a virtual monopoly in television.
"In the guise of ending oligarchy, Congress, by not renewing the ABS-CBN franchise, only created a new monopoly in the TV industry. It either favors the Number [Two] in the industry or in a matter of time, a new player will emerge with the blessings of the emperor," he said.
"Taken together, ABS-CBN and GMA had accounted for 80% of audience share, reach and advertising revenue, making them a duopoly," the 2020 Digital News Report on the Philippines released in June said.
"In late March, as the country entered its second week of lockdown because of the coronavirus lockdown, television viewership leapt 23% — an additional three million viewers — as people tuned in to their television, mostly for news."
The DNR, a project of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University, pointed out that "the Philippine Competition Commission earlier warned this would mean a less competitive media environment."
READ: Hontiveros to government: You dismantled the lives of ordinary workers, not oligarchs | 'Dismantling oligarchy' means fewer dynasties, stronger parties — Drilon
TV for democratizing information
Aguja, who is president of the Philippine Sociological Society and teaches at the Department of Sociology of the Mindanao State University-General Santos City, stated it plainly: Filipinos love TV.
“It keeps them informed, it makes them laugh, and cry, and makes them conversant of the issues of the day,” he said in an e-mail interview.
Aguja holds a doctorate degree in International Cooperation Studies from Nagoya University in Japan and a master's degree in Sociology at the University of the Philippines in Diliman.
In its 2013 Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey report, the Philippine Statistics Authority said: “Access to information is essential in increasing people’s knowledge and awareness of what is taking place around them that may eventually affect their perceptions and behavior.”
TV has also democratized information, Aguja said. "TV is the primary source of information for Filipino families and communities... Through the TV channels, the rich and the poor’s information needs are catered, be it news, current affairs, or entertainment, from Aparri to Tawi-Tawi," he explained.
While accessible to all, TV has proven to be of more help to the poor as they are the families with limited sources of information. Access to the internet, cable channels, newspapers and social media may be difficult for them, Aguja pointed out.
The same survey report from the Philippine Statistics Authority found that television is “the most popular form of mass media” with 65% of Filipinos from ages 10 to 64 watching every day.
It also said that "over 4 in every 5 households owned cellular phones and almost the same proportion of households have television."
TV as a power mass media tool
Aguja said that TV’s power is derived from its "ability to provide timely and often graphic information to the public," and that has not changed just because the world is grappling with COVID-19. TV showed the “two faces of crisis—brought by the pandemic, and by the government responses to the pandemic,” he said.
Despite criticism of "trash content", an allegation hurled at ABS-CBN during the House hearings, television is still the most sought-after channel of information during elections, as evidenced by the “tremendous amount of money” politicians pour in their TV ads, Aguja said.
The sociologist also noted that during Martial Law, President Ferdinand Marcos — ousted as a dictator in 1986 — "made sure that he controlled TV (and other media outlets) not only to limit the flow of information to the public (e.g. brutality and corruption of the regime), but also to use it for its propaganda of New Society or ‘Bagong Lipunan.’"
During the first week of martial law in 1972, Marcos shuttered media outlets, with security forces sweeping television and radio stations and later jailing publishers and journalists.
And when the dictatorship was overthrown, “TV, accompanied by the development in the broadcast technology, made the information long desired by most Filipinos accessible,” Aguja said.
"As free TV and radio channels proliferated, so thus the numerous programs developed to address the changing tastes of Filipino audiences. TV became a status symbol and a measure of development. What made one marginalized is measured through access to TV and ownership of the TV sets' brand," the sociologist said.
More than being a status symbol, television has shaped the culture and memory of generations.
"Except probably Generation Z, ABS-CBN has shaped the Filipino psyche — it became the Filipinos comic relief for their grief over our politicians and their own personal crisis. Thus explains the proliferation of entertainment, to the point that some could be considered trash, or soap opera of endless crying, and slapping,” Aguja said.
Tuning in to ABS-CBN for its newscasts had also become a ritual in many Filipino homes, he added.
Filipinos have become ‘Kapamilyas’
With 74 years of service under its belt, ABS-CBN’s “Kapamilya” tagline found resonance with generations of Filipinos, those who "laughed with the network during its noontime shows, or cried with it during its soap operas, or joined the nation in solidarity during disasters."
In an earlier Philstar.com report, Global Digital Media associate professor Jonathan Ong said that ABS-CBN has become an "institution that the Filipino poor would turn to in times of need and calamity."
Apart from its reportage, ABS-CBN, has too, pioneered the ABS-CBN’s Bantay Bata program, founded by the late Gina Lopez, that helped "shaped public awareness about children’s rights," while its Sagip Kapamilya program serves as a channel for disaster response that has, at times, arrived in disaster zones ahead of government relief.
Aguja said, it was through these outreach programs, coupled with the content it produces, that ABS-CBN made a mark on Filipino families. "It was with them in good times and bad times, even guiding them during disasters or providing them relief. It brings Filipino families together."
"The truth of the matter is that... millions joined the Bahay ni Kuya with passion, rather than watch congressional debates far from the lived experiences of majority of the Filipino," he said, referring to reality series "Pinoy Big Brother".
'Slaying the oligarchy?'
With its pioneering spirit and massive investments, ABS-CBN became "feared and loved" as it became a powerful broadcasting giant—painting a target on its back for "political persecution" said Aguja.
President Rodrigo Duterte, whom the Palace said is now neutral towards the network, openly expressed disdain for ABS-CBN even before he assumed the country's top post. He accused the network of "swindling" him by failing to play all of his campaign ads and later, of allegedly biased reportage.
It was under this hostile political climate that the network had to fight tooth and nail to secure a fresh 25-year franchise. It was a fight that it eventually lost.
On the eve of voting for the network’s franchise renewal bills, Rep. Mike Defensor (Anakalusgan party-list) manifested that a vote to deny ABS-CBN fresh franchise “is a vote to stop the perpetuation of an oligarchic state that continues to suppress our people.”
Days after these lawmakers effectively killed ABS-CBN’s franchise bid, no less than the chief executive bragged about his “dismantling the oligarchy.” While the Presidential Communications Office tried—and failed—to keep this under the wraps, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Rappler uncovered that the president aimed his tirades against supposed oligarchs, including the owners of ABS-CBN.
READ: Explainer: The oligarchy in the Philippines is more than just one family or firm
But with the lawmakers' rejection of ABS-CBN’s franchise bid, they "only created a new monopoly in the TV industry," Aguja said, as he stressed: “Oligarchy cannot be slain via a show of brute political force.”
"If the government is serious in dismantling the oligarchies in this country, it must institutionalize the initiative through the rule of law — by passing legislation that strengthens competition, limits monopoly, and provides more excellent choices to the public. It also has to seriously address the issue of cronies, and political dynasties, who, through the years, consolidated economic and political powers to few families and clans,” Aguja said.
After all, these, the sociology professor said, “are more devastating than ABS-CBN.”
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