ABS-CBN may resort to retrenchment of employees in August if company continues to be off-air

ABS-CBN Corporation which has been off-air in the past two weeks may be forced to lay off some of its workers in August if it will not be able to resume operations soon, according to the company's president and CEO Carlo Katigbak on Tuesday.

"When we were taken off the air on May 5th, we made a commitment to our employees, given the difficult economic situation following COVID-19, we made a commitment to them that we would not take away any jobs for three months," Katigbak said during the hearing conducted by the Senate committee on public services.

"We continue to lose a substantial amount of money every month and I'm afraid if we cannot go back on air soon, by August we may already have to consider beginning a retrenchment process," he added.

There are 5,000 employees under the ABS-CBN Corporation and 11,000 more under the ABS-CBN group of companies, according to Katigbak.

Further, he said that while ABS-CBN's ultimate goal is to secure another 25-year legislative franchise, it would be amenable to the five-month interim measure being discussed in the House of Representatives.

"At this point, the most important priority for ABS-CBN is to return on air as quickly as possible. We need to do this so that we can again start earning revenues so that we can continue paying salaries of our employees," he said.

"If the provisional franchise valid until October is the quickest way to get us back on air then we accept that with the hope that Congress would continue hearings so that eventually we can secure hopefully our 25-year franchise," he added.

Katigbak underscored that the media network is suffering from revenue losses due to the double dilemma caused by  the business climate amid the pandemic and the closure.

ABS-CBN already stated this in an urgent reiterative motion filed before the Supreme Court Monday to ask for an issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the National Telecommunications Commission's (NTC) cease and desist order.

Last week, the House of Representatives approved on first and second reading a measure granting ABS-CBN a provisional franchise until October 31, 2020. It was initially projected to pass the lower chamber's third reading on May 18.

However, the House returned the said bill to the plenary on Monday to accommodate additional interpellation and amendments from lawmakers.

ABS-CBN went off-air on May 5 after the National Telecommunications Commission issued a cease and desist order instead of a provisional authority to operate, which the latter initially committed to grant while the franchise renewal of the media company is still pending in Congress.

The network’s franchise expired on May 4 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.—AOL, GMA News