The world has moved on without ABS-CBN

Saying the House of Representatives will no longer hear any fresh bid to renew the expired franchise of ABS-CBN within the remaining months of the 18th Congress, Speaker Lord Allan Velasco has effectively put the question to rest regarding the broadcast giant, at least until after the term of President Rodrigo Duterte ends in 2022 and a new set of lawmakers shall have been elected into office by then.

Velasco issued the statement after rejecting one such bid last week. Without going into the merits of the renewed bid, Velasco said he does not want to lose focus on the more urgent and priority bills Congress needed to pass if the country has to successfully meet the challenges of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic which has turned the lives of Filipinos and the rest of the world upside down.

And indeed it is both irritating and unsettling why some lawmakers felt the need to revive the ABS-CBN question, especially at this time when there is no clear need to have the network back on air, if at all. All the arguments made on behalf of ABS-CBN when its franchise expired last May and its contentious bid for renewal literally divided the country along political lines have convincingly been answered and refuted against its position.

For one, it had been shown by both fact and circumstance that press freedom in the Philippines did not die with the demise of ABS-CBN, as its most rabid supporters and sympathizers have deluded themselves into believing to the point of pandering such a bare-faced lie to the gullible as well as anyone willing to listen.

It has been eight months since ABS-CBN thankfully went dark and silent and yet the press in the Philippines is still very much alive and kicking. In fact the disappearance of ABS-CBN's political bias and shabby and shoddy reporting proved all the better for the Philippine press, which can now bask in true press freedom's rarefied air of unsullied professionalism and objectivity.

The flow of information and the relaxing charm of entertainment did not stop with ABS-CBN, disproving the lie that only this network is truly capable of serving the Filipino. The true professionals of ABS-CBN, Ted Failon and Anthony Taberna among them, have moved on to other outfits, true to their professional calling and unbeholden to sentiment or the lure of what culture pervaded at their former place of employment.

Those who have chosen to remain, remain employed at the network's several other platforms, ABS-CBN having had many tentacles, like an octopus. Some of those who remained have been chastened by the turn of events and now act and behave a little more gingerly, their egos shaken by the fallacy of invincibility and supremacy. Others, though, remain unremorseful and continue to give ABS-CBN a bad name after it had gone.

One lesson worth learning from the tragedy that was ABS-CBN is to never believe in your own lie. Another lesson that might be worth learning for all media professionals is to never confuse a principle like press freedom with the problems of an individual. Just because ABS-CBN is a media entity does not make its internal problems with government a matter of principle and integrity of the entire industry.