Malacañang on Tuesday said it respects the decision of the Supreme Court to dismiss the quo warranto case filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida in February against broadcasting giant ABS-CBN.
Journalists and Communication scholars said President Rodrigo Duterte’s hostility “particularly news organizations and individual journalists who have dared to question and to criticize him, has been a hallmark of his administration.”
In 1972, when Marcos proclaimed martial law in order to combat the raging communist insurgency, the government closed down ABS-CBN and the rest of the media. At the time I was the minister of information and had to defend the action of the State as a necessary component of martial law, and by assuring the affected parties it was a temporary emergency measure. Indeed, it was, and eventually the media were allowed to resume operations. But did that interregnum benefit the State more than it cost us our democratic equilibrium? That was the ultimate question we had to answer to this very day.
Solicitor General Jose Calida on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to issue a gag order against ABS-CBN, claiming the broadcast giant was engaging in propaganda to sway the justices in the quo warranto case seeking to void its franchise.
President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday said broadcasting is a “privilege” extended by the government and that any abuse of this privilege would not be tolerated.
