We are tempted to thank President Rodrigo Duterte for proving us right about what we have been saying all along, that the shutdown of ABS-CBN was a personal vendetta that a lapdog Congress helped seal.
Why else would he rail about ordering the National Telecommunications Commission not to grant the network a permit to operate should Congress grant it a new franchise?
And why else would he continue to wave the banner of long ago discredited accusations of unpaid taxes when the proper thing to do, then and now, would be to hale the Lopezes to court if he actually believes these to be true?
We all know all he has to do to thwart a new franchise is to veto it.
Unless he is no longer so sure about his grip on a once subservient chamber and fears a veto override.
Perhaps it is not too late for the members of the House of Representatives to salvage their reputations, to prove that they are what the Constitution charges them to be, members of a co-equal and INDEPENDENT branch of government, and no longer the willing accomplices to the continuing siege on press freedom and all our other rights and liberties.
Do what is right, grant ABS-CBN a new franchise, and override any veto.
Reference:
National Directorate
+639175155991