Solicitor General Jose Calida has vowed to challenge before the Supreme Court a measure that will allow the continued operation of broadcast companies with expired franchises whose applications are pending in Congress.
Calida said he will question the constitutionality of two bills filed in the Senate and House of Representatives should they be signed into law.
“Should the bills be allowed to become law, the OSG stands ready to fulfill its role as Tribune of the People to itself raise the constitutionality of the law passed before the Supreme Court,” said the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) in a position paper.
The OSG is referring to Senate Bill No.1530 and House Bill No. 7923 which both seek to amend Executive Order No. 292, the Administrative Code of 1987.
With this, the OSG called on Congress and the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) “to further review and study Senate Bill No. 1530 and House Bill No.7923.”
“It is apparent that the proposed bills raise constitutional and legal questions and issues that are not to be taken lightly,” it stated.
The OSG pointed out “to allow an entity with an expired franchise to operate, pending its application and determination by Congress of its franchise, is a constitutional violation since that same entity or person is no longer qualified as mandated by the Constitution, to enjoy the privilege granted by the state.”
Among its arguments, the OSG said the bills seeks to “institutionalize the erroneous practice of allowing a broadcast entity, whose original franchise had already expired, to operate on a ‘hold-over franchise’ basis during the pendency of its application for franchise renewal before the Congress.”
“The danger of such proposed legislation becomes self-evident when an expired franchise holder, which may have otherwise been – for any number of reasons – disqualified from having its franchise renewed, may continue to enjoy the benefits of a legislative franchise far beyond the expiration of the original grant,” it explained.
The OSG also pointed out that the bills also seek to amend is EO 292 which provides that it is “applicable to all agencies as defined in the next succeeding section, except the Congress, the Judiciary, the Constitutional Commissions, military establishments in all matters relating exclusively to Armed Forces personnel, the Board of Pardons and Parole, and state universities and colleges.”
“As can be easily gleaned from the cited section, Congress is explicitly excluded in the scope of these set of provisions,” it said.
The OSG argued “the proposed amendment would not only undermine the power of Congress to limit the term of a franchise grant, but would also have the potential to be violative of the constitutional limit of fifty years as found in Section 11, Article XII of the Constitution.”
