SENATE President Vicente Sotto III indicated on Wednesday he is set to convene an all-senators caucus to tackle the ABS-CBN franchise issue.
Asked if the Senate will issue a provisional authority to ABS-CBN, Sotto III said they still need to study the matter.
“We will still discuss that. I’m not sure why the NTC [National telecommunication Commission] said a Senate Resolution is needed. Did they require that in the Iloilo electric franchise case? Did they require that in Smart? Did they ask for that in Globe’s case? Why don’t they want to act on their own? They should decide. Why will they pass it on to us?” Sotto III asked, in a mix of English and Filipino.
Instead, the Senate President advised against rushing to issue a concurrent or joint resolution on the issue, as Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon proposed.
“I think my advice is for us to really study and review it well because right now, I just heard that the 1994 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)” which he said he himself had invoked as basis for saying before that a franchise is deemed extended after termination date if there is a pending bill for renewal had been “superseded by a Supreme Court decision in 2004 and, therefore, a Supreme Court [ruling] forms part of the law of the land.” Sotto was referring to remarks by former Chief Justice Reynato Puno in a CNN Philippines interview on Tuesday.
He said senators would first “need to study this carefully.”
“We need to study this very well because we were not aware that there is such a Supreme Court decision that when a franchise ends, the franchise holder can no longer operate; you’ve to wait again for your franchise.”