Just hours after broadcast giant ABS-CBN went off the air on Tuesday night, putting thousands of its employees and talents out of work, a radio reporter was shot dead in Dumaguete City. The cases are vastly different, but they illustrate the difficulties faced by media organizations and workers in this country.
The National Telecommunications Commission ordered ABS-CBN to cease its use of the airwaves after the company’s broadcasting franchise ended on May 4. Cable and content generation services of the media network can continue. The NTC explained that it had no choice but to issue the order in the absence of a new franchise for the network from the House of Representatives, which has sat on the media group’s application for franchise renewal.
A remedy here is to de-politicize the issuance of broadcast franchises by taking the power out of the hands of Congress. Approval of this move, however, seems as unlikely as the passage of laws curbing political dynasties, regulating campaign finance and stopping racketeering.
Will Congress finally act on the franchise bill, with the NTC refusing to issue a provisional authority for ABS-CBN to operate? Perhaps the administration-dominated House wants to give the network the squeeze until the campaign period for the 2022 elections starts.
In another type of assault on the media, Rex Cornelio Pepino was on his motorcycle with his wife along North Road in Barangay Daro before 9 p.m. on Tuesday when two men on another motorcycle pulled up and shot him. The 48-year-old reporter of Energy 93.7 FM radio did not make it to a hospital.
Pepino became the third radio journalist to be murdered in Dumaguete in the past two years, after Dindo Generoso in November last year and Edmund Sestoso in April 2018. Sestoso’s killing is unsolved; three men have been indicted for Generoso’s murder. Media organizations say Cornelio is the 16th journalist to be killed during the Duterte administration, and the 188th since democracy was restored in 1986.
Police are still trying to establish a motive for Cornelio’s murder. Unless killers are caught and the brains are held accountable, permanently silencing journalists can become a bad habit. The same goes for shutting down media organizations who fall into disfavor with those in power.