House starts preliminaries on ABS-CBN franchise renewal, but says hearings to happen in May or August

(Eagle News) — The House Committee on Legislative Franchise began on Monday, Feb. 24, its preliminary proceedings on the bills seeking to renew ABS-CBN’s legislative franchise so it could operate for another 25 years.

Panel chair Palawan Rep. Franz Alvarez also announced that they would start to accept position papers for and against the franchise renewal.

But he said that the hearing for this would happen either in May or in August.

In the meantime, he called on all concerned to submit their position papers on the issue.

“Tama po ‘yung proseso po, ‘yon nga pong pagtanggap ng mga lahat ng position papers. Alam naman po natin marami pong may position ‘di ba po? Maraming anti, marami pong pro sa renewal (The process is correct to accept all the position papers. We all know that there are several positions [on this issue] right?),” Alvarez told reporters in an interview.

“So tatanggapin na po natin ‘yan para mapag-aralan na ng committee at ma-review po lahat (So we would accept all of these so the committee could review them),” he said.

The Senate, for its part, already started the hearing on the ABS-CBN franchise renewal on Monday, Feb. 24, particularly by the Senate Committee on Public Services headed by Senator Grace Poe.