The Lopez family should sell ABS-CBN Corporation to save its employees from being jobless or risk remaining being shut down even after the end of the Duterte administration, House Deputy Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte said Friday.
He made the statement to ANC when asked if the House could instead have given ABS-CBN the chance to correct its alleged violations to prevent its workers from losing their jobs.
“My suggestion to the Lopez family [is to just] sell the corporation,” said Villafuerte, one of the 70 lawmakers who voted to reject ABS-CBN’s franchise application.
“If they really love the 11,000 employees or more and they really want to serve the Filipino people, just sell the company.”
Villafuerte then said he was sure that, under the new owners, all of the network’s employees would be safe from losing their jobs.
He made his statement even as Rep. Lito Atienza appealed to the House leadership to elevate ABS-CBN’s case from the committee level to the plenary for a thorough discussion.
Atienza, one of the proponents of the network’s franchise renewal, made the appeal as he stressed that the network still had available remedies to secure a franchise following the decision of the House legislative franchise committee to reject its application on July 10.
“We can suspend the rules and take this up to the plenary for a full ventilation of the issues and debate involving all 305 members of Congress,” Atienza said.
He called on Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano to allow a plenary discussion of the matter.
“If the Speaker is really fair and for the people, he would allow this so we could have a true hearing and not a prosecution as what happened in the legislative franchise committee,” Atienza said.
He asked the House leadership to heed the public clamor for the renewal of ABS-CBN’s franchise, citing a recent SWS survey showing that 75 percent of the Filipinos it polled favored the grant of the franchise.
Lawyer Romulo Macalintal supported Atienza’s proposal.
“At present, the HR [House of Representatives] is composed of 304 representatives representing 243 district representatives and 61 party-lists,” he said in a statement.
“But those who participated in deciding ABS-CBN’s franchise totaled 84 only. Thus, a great majority of our people are asking: What happened to our representatives? How did they vote on this issue?”