Consistently inconsistent: Constitutional circumvention

The Manila Times Opinion - May 21, 2020

https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/05/21/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/consistently-inconsistent-
constitutional-circumvention/726160/

IS the publicly known problem about ABS-CBN Corp. the real score behind the shutdown? Did
the Congress move because of the material condition of the media or is there an unmoved mover
and/or unseen overseer? Reports on May 8 quoted House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano as saying
that the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) “succumbed to pressure,” noting how
the NTC had committed to granting a provisional permit. Why is the NTC inconsistent with its
prior conviction? “We were all ambushed by the NTC,” Cayetano said.
Legality, it is. Is the opinion of the Department of Justice not legal? Does the Senate
resolution not imply legality? What about the written and spoken words at the Congress?
Does this infer that the solicitor general outsmarts these legal entities? The validity, expiry and/or
extension of the franchise do not monopolize the discourse. It implies political pressure to
lawmakers in surviving the game of politics, hostage to the tides of time. Politicians are puzzled
escaping the wrath of the people to survive the nearing end of the administration’s six-year term.
Such is evident in their plight as their predicaments may cause them political suicide since what
has been a plain political problem between political parties has become a personal problem of the
people as the personal of one becomes the political problem of the many.
Former senator Juan Ponce Enrile, in his Manila Times commentary (May 8, 2020), gave weight
to the constitutional circumvention concerning Filipino ownership requirement. How serious is
this argument when this administration wants to grant foreign ownership to public utilities? House
Bill (HB) 78 had 136 votes, as reported by The Manila Times’ Divina Nova Joy dela Cruz on
March 11, 2020. “It seeks to limit the definition of public utility…distinguishes the term public
service from public utility making other entities such as telecommunications and transportation
businesses open for foreign ownership,” the report noted.
Enrile may pin down ABS-CBN with his wit in legal matters. “Is it just and beneficial to the
common good?” the ordinary Filipino asks. “The solicitor general is correct,” Enrile concluded.
“Is it right?” the citizens clamor. It is timely that Enrile pointed out Article XVI, Section 11(1):
“The ownership and management of mass media shall be limited to citizens of the Philippines, or
to corporations, cooperatives or association, wholly-owned and managed by such citizens.” The
Filipinos would like to see him opposing HB 78 and the administration’s subservient
“independent” foreign policy. Banking on the Filipino ownership requirement, Enrile reminds us
to look back on how the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan deleted and/or diluted
some nationalist provisions of our Constitution: Article II Section 19 and 21, and Article XII
Section 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10. I may not have noticed, but he seemed silent on these people’s rights
concerning Filipino ownership of public utilities and operation of enterprises implying
inconsistency in consistent constitutional circumvention beginning from the People’s Initiative for
Reform Modernization and Action in 1997.

Noe M. Santillan
Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Social Studies
University of the Philippines Cebu