ABS-CBN and good government

The ABS-CBN tangle with Duterte government has a long history. That history has its roots with two newspapers El Tiempo in Iloilo and the Manila Chronicle in Manila that in time expanded country wide. It became politically partisan and hired the best writers in town. I worked there as a reporter in my younger days.

The Lopez family hails from Iloilo but it became wealthy and powerful when two of its descendants the brothers Eugenio “Eñing” H. López Sr. (1901-­1975) and Fernando “Nanding” H. López Sr. (1904-­1993), great-grandsons of Basílio López and grandsons of Kapitan Eugenio J. López made their mark in business and politics.

The brothers’ business interests are now known as the Lopez Group of Companies. It includes the media conglomerate ABS-CBN Corp. and First Philippine Holdings Corp. The combination of the power of media and politics was successful with Eugenio in charge of business and his younger brother Fernando taking charge of politics. The potent combination of media power and politics of the brothers became the template of government aspirants. Fernando was elected vice president of the Philippines under presidents Elpidio Quirino and Ferdinand Marcos.

The story goes that it was Imelda who cried in her plea to the Lopez brothers to give way to Marcos. (I accepted the legend too in my book The Untold Story of Imelda Marcos).

The Lopez brothers may have wanted Fernando as the presidential candidate but the sugar bloc with their money and influence rejected the idea despite Imelda’s tears and pleas. They did not think Fernando a winnable candidate. It might have hurt but the bloc’s rejection became the impetus to create other sources of political strength. Media, for example would be a more lasting source of political power.

For example – the Manila Chronicle. They would hire the best writers in town who could be told what to write, Marcos hounded with criticism through editorials and columnists.

Ferdinand Marcos had his revenge in 1972. The Manila Chronicle, among other newspapers, were closed when Marcos declared martial law.

It was re-opened in 1986 but it was closed down again in 1998 after a labor dispute. I was among those who helped and tried to create a labor union earlier.

In those times we did have a newspaper that could be trusted – the Roces-owned Manila Times.

Mina Roces wrote “Kinship Politics in Post-War Philippines: The Lopez Family, 1945­-1989”. It was published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2008.

On being awarded the Legion of Honor by President Corazon Aquino, Joaquin “Chino” Roces, publisher of The Manila Times, pleaded with the president:

“Please allow me to remind you, first. That our people brought a new government to power because our people felt an urgent need for change. That change was nothing more and nothing less than that of moving quickly into a new moral order. The people believed, and many of them still do, that when we said we would be the exact opposite of Marcos, we would be just that.

“Because of that promise which the people believed, our triumph over Marcos was anchored on a principle of morality . . . . To our people, I dare propose that new moral order is best appreciated in terms of our response to graft and corruption in public service. We cannot afford a government of thieves unless we can tolerate a nation of highwaymen.”

With their newspaper gone, the Lopezes had another card. ABS-CBN which combined the Alto Broadcasting System and Chronicle Broadcasting Network, a Philippine free-to-air television network that is the flagship property of ABS-CBN Corp., a company under the Lopez Group.

“The flagship television station of ABS-CBN is DWWX-TV (ABS-CBN TV-2 Manila). The network operates across the Philippine archipelago through the ABS-CBN Regional division which controls 80 television stations. Its programs are also available outside the Philippines through the global subscription television channel The
Filipino Channel (TFC) which is available in over three million paying households worldwide as well as terrestrially in Guam through KEQI-LP. Since 2011, the network has been on test broadcast for digital terrestrial television using the Japanese standard ISDB-T in select areas in the Philippines. On Oct. 3, 2015, ABS-CBN started to broadcast in high-definition through its affiliate direct-to-home cable and satellite television providers.” (Sourced from Wikipedia.)

But times change. This time it was not about political rivalry but a show of media power on what it can do and cannot do under a reformist government.

ABS-CBN was issued a cease and desist order by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on May 5, 2020 as it should when ABS-CBN’s franchise license lapsed earlier in February 2020. ABS-CBN was allowed to operate under a temporary license, with support from both the Senate and Congress.

The franchise license expired on May 4, 2020, and a day later, ABS-CBN officially signed off in the evening. Rules are rules.

To quote the late Chino Roces “We cannot afford a government of thieves unless we can tolerate a nation of highwaymen.”

Alfred McCoy in his “The Anarchy of Families” which was conferred the 1995 National Book Award, examines how some families in the Philippines were able build their political and business empires in a manner replete with fraud, deceptions, trickery and violence.