The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday dismissed the quo warranto petition filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida against network giant ABS-CBN on the grounds that the franchise of the broadcast network had already expired.

In a statement, SC spokesman Brian Keith Hosaka said that the High Court en banc junked Calida’s request to revoke ABS-CBN’s earlier franchise for alleged violations of conditions set by Congress when it granted a 25-year authority for the Lopez-owned company to broadcast its content on television and radio.

To recall, the broadcast network’s franchise already expired on 4 May which rendered Calida’s request moot and the SC said that the expired lease was also the basis of the National Telecommunications Commissions’ (NTC) shutdown order — an agency which Calida also handled as the government’s top counsel.

A quo warranto “is a special civil action brought in the name of the Philippines against a person who usurps, intrudes into, or unlawfully holds or exercises a public office, position or franchise; or against a public officer who does or suffers an act which, by provision of law, constitutes a ground for the forfeiture of his office; or an association which acts as a corporation within the Philippines without being legally incorporated or without lawful authority to act.”

Calida said in his petition that they want to put an end to what they discovered to be highly abusive practices of ABS-CBN benefiting a greedy few at the expense of millions of its loyal subscribers.

He also stated that these practices have gone unnoticed or were disregarded for years.

“The petition will show that ABS-CBN has been broadcasting for a fee, which is beyond the scope of its legislative franchise. Further, the media giant, hiding behind an ‘elaborately crafted corporate veil,’ has been allowing foreign investors to take part in the ownership of Philippine mass media entity, in gross violation of the foreign interest restriction of mass media provided under Section 11, Article XVI of the Constitution,” said the petition.

“ABS-CBN abused the privilege granted by the State when it launched and operated a pay-per-view channel in ABS-CBN TV Plus, the KBO Channel, without prior approval or permit from the National Telecommunications Commission. While it is true that broadcasting is a business, the welfare of the people must not be sacrificed in the pursuit of profit,” it added.

Meantime, Hosaka said the case against its subsidiary ABS-CBN Convergence, Inc. remains pending before the court. Congress granted a 25-year franchise to the entity previously known as Multi-Media Telephony, Inc. in June 1997 and that franchise will expire in 2022. (Daily Tribune)