Actions and consequences

Except for a brief, two-month interlude as a PR assistant at San Miguel Corp., which I quickly gave up to go back to the only job I truly love, I have all my working life been a journalist. I have lived journalism in all its aspects, seen it in all its shades, from reporter all the way to editor-in-chief and publisher, the position from which I retired after 35 years, only to keep on writing as a columnist.

So why am I not grieving and aggrieved by the failure of ABS-CBN to secure a congressional renewal of its franchise? Am I not supposed to feel for and with my fellows in the media industry? Do I not even feel threatened by this development and what it might augur the press? The answer to them all, I suppose, is because I am, well, a journalist. I stick to the facts. I do not get emotionally involved, unlike some who approach the issue differently.

What happens now to the 11,000-plus employees of ABS-CBN, they ask. Actually, the question, while indeed heart-rending, is irrelevant to the franchise application and it had been devious and unfair on the part of ABS-CBN to make it a concern of congressmen. But if the matter had to be dealt with at all, it is a hot potato best reserved for no one else's lap but ABS-CBN's.

First of all, only 2,000-plus are regular ABS-CBN employees. The rest are contractuals without security of tenure despite have worked for the network for many years. The question to ask is not what happens to the 11,000 but why, for years, most of them have been denied their legal rights as workers by the company we are now asked to sympathize with.

We are asked to ignore everything else and focus on the fate of 11,000 who will now lose their jobs. But people are losing jobs right now on account of the pandemic. Whose hearts bleed for them? Why so special the attention for ABS-CBN? Had it paid the right taxes, there would have been plenty of billions to help not just a few thousand ABS-CBN workers but millions of other Filipinos who not only lost jobs but never had jobs at all.

ABS-CBN is not the only starfish in the sea, or so goes an old ‘60s song. There are hundreds of TV, radio and print organizations that make up the Philippine media industry. It is instructive that there is no noise at all coming from this usually-noisy sector notorious for closing ranks even for far less-consequential issues. Almost no tears are being shed for ABS-CBN from within its own industry, an objectivity worthy of praise and congratulations.

There are no press freedom agitations from this sector, only from outsiders who do not really know what they are talking about or seen press freedom for what it really is from the inside. To those of us who know, we can only shake our heads and smile. Such ignorance embarrasses us on their behalf.

As soon as this brouhaha blows over, the Filipino nation will realize that ABS-CBN is not the Philippine press. The Filipino nation will soon see that the Philippine press is alive and well without ABS-CBN, that the news is still covered, in fact even more objectively and efficiently, and entertainment shall have in fact become more wholesome and gainful. ABS-CBN is now seeing the consequences of its own actions.