The House of Representatives has suspended the consideration of House Bill 6732, or the bill granting ABS-CBN a temporary franchise, after roughly three hours of debates on Monday, May 18.
This, after legal experts and some lawmakers, addressed the House’s move as “unconstitutional” for rushing to pass the bill on first and second reading in just one day stressing that the charter requires that bills be passed after three readings on separate days.
Zamboanga Sibugay 1st District Rep. Sharky Palma stated: “Due to request of our members who wish to make some interpellations and possible amendments on the bill—let me make this of record that at any time the House can approve this bill, House Bill No. 6732 on third reading. But because of the insistence of our colleagues to interpellate further on the matter, I move that we reconsider approval on [the second] reading of House Bill No. 6732.”
Among those who raised the concern regarding the approval of the bill on first and second reading on the same day were Albay 1st District Rep. Edcel Lagman, Senator Francis Pangilinan, and Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez.
“No amount of purported or actual passage of some bills in the past on first and second readings on the same day will constitute an unassailable precedent in violation of the Constitution,” Lagman said.
According to him, it is necessary to assure that the passage of House Bill 6732 is free of any “constitutional defect” and the “exigency or even good motives cannot excuse or validate the repetition of an unconstitutional act or procedure.”
However, Deputy Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte, the sponsor of the bill, insisted that the passage of the bill on second reading was a “prerogative” of the chamber.
“We are doing that (recalling of approval) simply because it is also the prerogative of this body to do so, to revert back, we’ve done that in the past. It has precedence,” Villafuerte said.
“It does not mean that [if] we are reverting to second reading that we believe that we have made a constitutional defect,” he continued.
Article VI Section 26. (2) of the Constitution states that “(n)o bill passed by either House shall become a law unless it has passed three readings on separate days, and printed copies thereof in its final form have been distributed to its Members three days before its passage, except when the President certifies to the necessity of its immediate enactment to meet a public calamity or emergency.
With this motion, the plenary is now tackling other bills.
Apparently, House Bill 6732 was filed by House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano and 7 other house leaders on Wednesday, May 13 granting ABS-CBN Network a 6-month provisional franchise to operate.
Meanwhile, the Lopez-led company welcomed the sudden approval of the bill which grants it to operate until October 2020 and was looking “forward to participating in the process of our franchise renewal and stand[s] ready to respond to the issues that have been raised against the network, its owners, management and employees.”
The country’s largest broadcasting network was forced to shut down on May 5 following the cease-and-desist order issued by the National Telecommunications Commission as its congressional franchise expired on May 4.
It was also the NTC that committed before the House Legislative Franchises Committee to issue the network a provisional authority to operate beyond May 4. However, the agency failed to comply with its promise after Solicitor General Jose Calida threatened to file graft charges against NTC officials if they granted ABS-CBN a provisional permit that allows the network to continue its broadcast operations.
It’s been two weeks since the media giant signed-off and as the day goes by, ABS-CBN incurs millions of losses.
In a tweet by ABS-CBN News, it was revealed that the network is losing 30 to 35 million per day since it stopped broadcasting on Tuesday, May 5.
Furthermore, ABS-CBN Corporation’s shares dropped 7.2 percent after it resumed trading nearly two weeks after its forced shutdown.
