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House panel invites Gabby Lopez III to attend ABS-CBN franchise hearing
By ERWIN COLCOL, GMA News The House committee on legislative franchises is inviting ABS-CBN chairman emeritus Eugenio "Gabby" Lopez III to attend its next joint hearing with the committee on good government and public accountability on the television network's franchise issue.
This was after Deputy Speaker Rodante Marcoleta sought the presence of Lopez in the hearing to answer allegations regarding his citizenship.
During the ongoing joint hearing Monday, Marcoleta asked whether Lopez was present, to which House franchise panel chair Franz Alvarez replied: "Wala po."
Marcoleta said he asked such a question as he was expecting that the issue on Lopez's citizenship would be discussed in the hearing.
"There are questions that are personal to him and I don’t think the lawyers present today will be able to answer these questions, particularly those questions that are personal to him. I would not know how to deal with this if he’s not present. I’d like to believe that he should be, as a matter of courtesy to this House," he said.
"The issue of citizenship is not a simple matter. I hope the representatives of ABS-CBN would find in their heart the importance of being able to motivate him or convince him to be present," he added.
Anakalusugan party-list Representative Mike Defensor supported Marcoleta's call.
"The issue of the honorable Marcoleta is not just a simple issue of financial or violations of certain laws. But it is the constitutional mandate that we have to fulfill as part of their franchise," Defensor said.
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Following Marcoleta's manifestation, Alvarez ordered the committee secretariat to send an invitation to Lopez to attend their next hearing.
Marcoleta earlier questioned the citizenship of Lopez, whom he said is an American citizen when he took the helm of the company in 1986.
This, he claimed, is a violation of the constitutional provision that mass media companies should be 100% Filipino-owned.
But Cagayan De Oro City Representative Rufus Rodriguez, one of the authors of the bills granting ABS-CBN another 25-year franchise, has asserted that Lopez “is a Filipino citizen from the beginning.”
He argued that ABS-CBN did not violate the constitutional provision that mass media companies should be 100% Filipino-owned when Lopez was its president.
“Since he (Lopez) was born in the United States in 1952, he was, under US law, an American citizen by virtue of his birth on American soil. He was also a Filipino, since his parents were both Filipinos,” Rodriguez said.
“The fact is that, when he was born, both his parents were Filipinos. So he was automatically a Filipino by birth under the 1935 Constitution, which was the Charter applicable then,” he added.
Unless Lopez renounced his Filipino citizenship and chose to be an American citizen, Rodriguez said he or his network did not violate the constitutional provision.—AOL, GMA News