Last month, ABS-CBN announced that TeleRadyo would cease operations at the end of June due to financial losses since 2020. This is after the non-renewal of the broadcasting giant’s franchise.
Filipino journalists are questioning the selling of the broadcasting frequencies that were formerly assigned to ABS-CBN, one of the country's biggest media networks that was shutdown by President Duterte.
Journalists and supporters also published via Twitter the names of legislators who rejected ABS-CBN’s franchise renewal, urging voters to boycott the said politicians next year.
The media should resist all commercialist trappings and not favor profit over truth-telling. Journalists and news media organizations need to brush up on the normative standards of journalism, if only to realize that bias is inherent and should not be hidden.
As ardently observed as Christmas in these Catholic isles, Lent was all of four months ago, but ABS-CBN broadcaster and former Philippine Vice-President Noli De Castro recently described what his network is currently going through as a “calvary.” De Castro was...
“Never since the late unlamented Marcos dictatorship has a president ever deigned to shut down the independent media and stifle criticism and dissent.”
An oligarchy is governed by a few families and individuals. While wealth is indeed among its members’ more obvious attributes, wealth alone does not make an oligarch. The capacity to influence or control government and governance does. An oligarch is therefore...
President Rodrigo Duterte will deliver his fifth State of the Nation Address on Monday, July 27. Bulatlat examines Duterte's policies on the economy and foreign policy, his COVID-19 response and track record on human rights and the attacks on press freedom and expression since the lockdown.
“It is clear that the goal of this administration is not only to shut down ABS-CBN but to send a message throughout the media industry.”
The issue here goes beyond Rappler as other dominant and alternative news media organizations are also under attack. Ressa only becomes a convenient target because of her high profile. That's what she has in common with ABS-CBN which is a leading network. The chilling effect becomes clear by targeting both of them.
Aside from the complainants, the NLRC decision bolstered the rest of the contractual ABS-CBN workers’ demands for regularization.
While it is true that ordinary citizens are expected to maintain civility, speaking out should not be criminalized. We are being punished for demanding from government what it should have been doing in the midst of a health crisis.
"Shrinking democratic space through the militarizing of the pandemic response as well as not closing the largest media network’s airwaves is a direct affront to civil liberties.”
“Di ko akalain na ang kalayaan na na-achieve natin noong 1986 ay manganganib uli ngayon.” (I did not expect that the freedom we had achieved in 1986 would be threatened once again.)
“It is high time that Congress finally hear and approve the franchise of ABS-CBN to undo the damage and attack on press freedom, freedom of expression and freedom of information perpetrated by Malacañang.”
A community of readers and supporters that help us sustain our operations through microdonations for as low as $1.