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SEN.
Joker Arroyo on Thursday asserted that the Senate, after
conducting an inquiry two years ago, had already
affirmed that the National Telecommunications Commission
(NTC) cannot revoke franchises of media outlets for
playing the “Hello, Garci” tapes detailing phone
conversations between President Arroyo and former
Comelec commissioner Virgilio Garcillano about alleged
vote-rigging in the 2004 elections.
In a
privileged speech, Arroyo mentioned recent reports that
the Supreme Court is set to promulgate its decision on
the Francisco Chaves petition, where he raised the
question, among others, that the threat of the NTC to
revoke the license of broadcast media if they play the
Garci tapes is a form of prior restraint.
“The
Senate, since two years ago, has not been remiss in
respect to this subject,” said Arroyo, who chaired the
joint hearings held by the Committees on Human Rights
and on Public Services during the 13th Congress.
Arroyo
recalled that on
April 4, 2006,
the full Senate in plenary unanimously adopted Joint
Committee Report 69, stating that there is no existing
law that grants to any government agency the power to
control or regulate the contents of what could be
broadcast “because such a law would be patently
unconstitutional.”
This
even as the senator acknowledged that a television or
radio station is required to apply for a legislative
franchise in order to operate because it must be
assigned a frequency which no other station can use. For
such use, he added, the station has to pay a fee to the
state which owns the airwaves.
He said
the job of the NTC, the agency in charge of implementing
this, is two-fold: assign the frequency and collect the
fees due the government.
“Beyond
that, it has no power because of the constitutional
protection that no law shall be passed abridging freedom
of the press,” he said. “To begin with, it is
essentially a regulatory body designed for the
telecommunications industry, namely, telephones and
related businesses, telegraph and cable; and only
incidentally for broadcast media.”
Senator
Arroyo warned the attempt of NTC to press the broadcast
industry to draw up guidelines which, in effect, would
be the standards of what could be broadcast, “amounts to
prior censorship, which is anathema to press freedom.”
Senate
Committee Report 69 described as “clearly of doubtful
constitutional validity and, therefore, unenforceable
and void,” Section 5 in the franchise bills of broadcast
media outlets. NTC claims this allows the President to
temporarily take over and suspend the operations of any
station, in times of war, rebellion, calamity, or
emergency.”
Arroyo
said it is not clear “how it got into the TV-radio
franchise bills.” It is fair to deduce, he added, “that
in light of the 1986, 1987 and 1989 coup attempts, where
among the first targets of rebels was to gain control of
television stations to enable them to have a vehicle for
propaganda, Congress incorporated such a provision
which, at that time, was apparently acceptable.”
Arroyo
argued the Constitution delineates that in a national
emergency, the state may temporarily take over privately
owned utility or business with public interest, but “not
the President.”
He added
Congress has yet to enact the appropriate law under what
conditions the government may exercise such powers. |
