ABS-CBN SHUTDOWN AND PATRONAGE POLITICS

Weng Hidalgo was a reporter for media giant ABS-CBN for about 16 years, but she was never regularized. In 2003, she filed a regularization complaint against the network before the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC); ABSCBN in return offered her a regularization package which did not seem to recognize her 16 years of service with the network. Worse, the network even wanted her to drop her labor case at that time.

Hidalgo is just one of the thousands of contractual employees of ABSCBN, many of whom worked behind the cameras. Unlike its regular artists who are paid hefty amounts of talent fees, these employees are hired as contractuals of ABSCBN.

Now that the franchise of ABSCBN is nearing its expiration, ABSCBN turns to its employees as battle cry for renewal. Even its artists plead on social media to defend their mother network. Others, like Bayan Muna, treat the issue as an attack against press freedom.

The issues surrounding ABSCBN – press freedom and employment, is just a parcel of a bigger socio-economic problem faced by the country.

In the Philippines, mainstream media is a monopoly of just few families:

ABSCBN: Lopez, a pre-Marcos oligarch

GMA: Triumvirates of Felipe Gozon, Menardo Jimenez and Gilberto Duavit, the 41st, 42nd and 44th richest Philippine billionaires

Inquirer: Prieto-Rufinos, the urban landed elites

Philippine Star: Antonio Salim of Indonesia, its controlling shareholder

The diversity of voices envisioned in a democracy is actually non-existent in the Philippines since only a few families control how opinions are shaped in the country. This is because the 1987 Constitution barred the entry of foreign ownership of mass media (the Constitution requires 100% Filipino ownership of mass media). Hence, other more credible international news organizations like BBC and Al Jazeera, etc. cannot operate in the country. The CNN Philippines is just a franchise of a local Filipino company, Nine Media Corporation.

With lack of enough competitors, our local talents, journalists and technical and skilled human resources are left with no choice but to work for these few media companies while these few media entities are not forced to provide decent salaries and employee benefits.

In the era of internet and wireless communication, there seems to be no logic at all with barring the entry of foreign media in the country under the Constitution. If at all, it only protected the interest of few elite families while at the same time depriving our local talents of a chance to work and be exposed to international media best practices.

Now, is it really a question of press freedom? It seems not. As a result of this tight Constitutional restriction, Filipinos are at the mercy of these oligarchs. Hence, the culture of patronage politics.

#PressFreedom #ABSCBN #YESTOABSCBNSHUTDOWN