Department of Justice (DoJ) Secretary Menardo Guevarra on Friday said there is nothing wrong with legislative directive that ordered the National Telecommunication Commission (NTC) to issue a provisional permit to ABS-CBN which would allow the network to operate while the renewal of its legislative franchise remains pending.
Guevarra pointed this out a day after lawyer Lorenzo “Larry” Gadon filed a petition asking the Supreme Court (SC) to stop the NTC from issuing a provisional permit to ABS-CBN.
Gadon argued in his petition that Congress can only issue a legislative franchise and not a letter-directive from House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano and Palawan Rep. Franz Alvarez, chair of the House committee on legislative franchises, which directed the NTC to issue the provisional permit.
“No one ever said that a resolution can replace a full-fledged franchise law,” Guevarra told reporters.
“Here we are talking about a vacuum that arises when a franchise expires and the congress has yet to act on the franchise renewal bill,” he explained.
On the other hand, Guevarra welcomed the petition filed by Gadon before the SC.
“In any event, the DoJ welcomes the filing of the petition as it presents a very interesting question of law,” the Secretary said.
In his petition, Gadon pointed out that “the NTC has neither authority nor jurisdiction to issue a permit to operate to ABS-CBN when the latter’s franchise expires on May 4, 2020.”
“The supposed authority of the NTC to extend an existing broadcast franchise, or to issue a provisional permit to operate sans a valid franchise, is nowhere in the said mandate,” read his petition.
Also, he cited that the SC has previously ruled that “a congressional franchise is required for the operation of radio and television broadcasting stations.”
“Congress, not Cayetano or Alvarez, has the exclusive jurisdiction to grant, modify, renew, or repeal a legislative franchise,” he added.
Gadon explained “there is no showing that neither respondent Cayetano nor Alvarez was authorized by Congress to issue the letter-directive to the NTC relative to the ABS-CBN’s franchise as they cannot show any Journal of the Lower House to prove that their actions were approved by the majority of the Members of the House.” (Jeffrey Damicog)
