The House of Representatives’ Committee on Legislative Franchises denied the application of media network ABS-CBN for a new 25-year franchise, with 70 committee members voting in favor of the resolution, 11 against it.
Legal practitioners have suggested various remedies for ABS-CBN to have a franchise, including a very rigorous, back-breaking Constitutional recourse: the People’s Initiative. But this law is rife with complexities.
What is People's Initiative
People's Initiative (PI) is a provision in the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines allowing for a "people's initiative" as one of the modes for constitutional amendment:
ART. 6, SECTION 32
The Congress shall, as early as possible, provide for a system of initiative and referendum, and the exceptions therefrom, whereby the people can directly propose and enact laws or approve or reject any act or law or part thereof passed by the Congress or local legislative body after the registration of a petition therefor signed by at least ten per centum of the total number of registered voters, of which every legislative district must be represented by at least three per centum of the registered voters thereof.
PI is an act of pushing an initiative (national or local) allowed by Republic Act No 6735, otherwise known as "The Initiative and Referendum Act". The law seeks to provide for system of initiative and referendum to directly propose, enact, approve or reject, in whole or in part, the Constitution, laws, ordinances, or resolutions passed by any legislative body – like the Congress.
RA 6735 SECTION 3
a) “Initiative” is the power of the people to propose amendments to the Constitution or to propose and enact legislations through an election called for the purpose.
There are three (3) systems of initiative, namely:
a.1 Initiative on the Constitution which refers to a petition proposing amendments to the Constitution;
a.2 Initiative on statutes which refers to a petition proposing to enact a national legislation; and
a.3 Initiative on local legislation which refers to a petition proposing to enact a regional, provincial, city, municipal, or barangay law, resolution or ordinance.
RA 6735 SECTION 5
Requirements.—(a) To exercise the power of initiative or referendum, at least ten per centum (10%) of the total number of the registered voters, of which every legislative district is represented by at least three per centum (3%) of the registered voters thereof, shall sign a petition for the purpose and register the same with the Commission.
What the potential problems are
1. PI, according to RA 6375, must be proposed by the people upon a petition of at least ten per centum of the total number of registered voters, of which every legislative district must be represented by at least three per centum of the registered votes therein. With around 62 million voters nationwide, the petition needs approximately 6.2 million signatures.
2. PI is a rigorous and back-breaking task to convince 10 percent of all registered voters and three percent of voters in each legislative district to support an initiative that requires logistics and political connections beyond the capacity of most citizens groups.
3. PI, embodied in RA 6735 is deemed to be defective not only because it is “incomplete, inadequate or wanting in essential terms and conditions” for amending the Constitution (Santiago vs. COMELEC, 1997) but also because it restricts direct democracy and fails to ensure citizens’ informed choice. The law is unclear on even the most basic procedures, such as who prepares the wording of the initiative, the requirements for information dissemination, and the procedure for validation.
4. PI-backed national referendum is a big government expenditure. A national referendum of this scale can cost billions of pesos and months of preparation. The government spent around P4 billion in the 2018 Barangay elections alone. With the present economy sunk by the Covid-19 pandemic, the chances for the government to spend this much can be little to none.
5. PI, by law, is mandated to endorse amendments to laws meant for the public interest. ABS-CBN is a private company, thus its legislative franchise cannot be considered as pertaining to national and public interest. To classify a private corporation as such may be harmful and injurious, as other private corporations may follow suit, resulting to inequalities in terms of business opportunities.
In addition, Senate President Vicente Sotto said that private bills, like those seeking to grant legislative franchises, should “exclusively” emanate from the House of Representatives. “A private bill is mandated by the Constitution to be exclusively under the House of Representatives,” he said.
6. PI remains untested. The People's Initiative Against Pork Barrel (PIAP – remember the PDAF controversy?) was repeatedly announced in 2014 as up for launch, with Quezon City being said to have gathered around 50,000 to 100,000 signatures out of the required 177,000 signatures from the entire city territory. The PIAP then was pushing to gather 6 million signatures to force Congress to pass a law banning all types of discretionary funds. It was, however, unclear in history whether the petition was able to gather the much-needed 6 million signatures. To date, not one referendum has been held for a proposed national law.
Any thoughts?
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