Defensor tells ABS-CBN: Use your 'evaded' taxes to help employees

Anakalusugan party-list Representative Mike Defensor on Tuesday suggested that ABS-CBN Corporation use the taxes it supposedly evaded to help its 11,000 workers whose jobs are endangered by the denial of the network's franchise application.

In an interview with ANC, Defensor admitted that the implication of the denial of the franchise application of ABS-CBN to its employees was "one of the hardest aspects" of the House franchise committee's decision.

Asked what could be done for ABS-CBN employees who may lose their jobs, the lawmaker pointed to the taxes that he claimed the network evaded.

"The taxes that were evaded, P3.2 billion, are just taxes, not even earnings. It was enjoyed by the company for so many years. Now I think it's time to return it to the employees," he said.

"If you really feel for the employees, you know there is so much money there. There are earnings where you can get from to help the employees while we're trying to resolve everything, and not just to retrench them and take them out of the company," he added.

Defensor said that while he feels for the plight of the ABS-CBN employees, he and his fellow lawmakers could not just let the supposed violations of the network pass.

He said ABS-CBN Corp. was the applicant for the franchise and "they knew there may be problems."

"All applicants for mass media, for broadcasting, know that at some point, there may be a chance of denial. So I couldn't understand why when they applied, they were using as a cover the employees and those that will be out of work," he said.

Defensor made a case, for example, that the House panel found that there were 30% Chinese investors owning ABS-CBN, which he said could be a glaring violation of the constitutional provision on ownership and management of mass media companies.

"Do we now say no because there are 11,000 workers and we should approve the application for franchise even if we know that there are 30,000 investors in contradiction of the Constitution?" he said.

Defensor insisted that there was "something wrong" with the Philippine Depositary Receipts that ABS-CBN issued to foreign entities, even as network's lawyers said these were issued in a legal manner.

"If the discussion then or the nature of what we were discussing was somehow in the effect, 'Mr. Chairman, this may be a problem, we can correct immediately, we can do this and that.' But that was not the direction of the discussion. They (ABS-CBN lawyers) were insisting that it was legal," he said.

ABS-CBN Group chief financial officer Ricardo Tan said during one of the House joint panel hearings that the network paid a total of P5.2 billion in various taxes in 2018 alone, P465 million of which were income tax.

Bureau of Internal Revenue OIC Assistant Commissioner Manuel Mapoy also agreed that ABS-CBN paid its taxes regularly and "in a lawful manner."

Atty. Cynthia Del Castillo, counsel for ABS-CBN, meanwhile, maintained that the network did not circumvent the Philippine Constitution when ABS-CBN Holdings Corp. issued PDRs to foreign entities.

PDRs, she said, are merely financial instruments, not shares, and that holders have no rights to vote and to participate in the management of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp.

Voting 70-11, the House franchise committee on Friday voted to adopt the resolution of the technical working group it created recommending the denial of ABS-CBN's franchise application. 

Network executives said they were saddened by the decision.

ABS-CBN went off the air on May 5 after the National Telecommunications Commission issued a cease and desist order following the expiry of the network's franchise the day before. —KG, GMA News