One wonders what the Senate “inquiry” into the plight of the embattled ABS-CBN network will actually achieve. According to House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, the House of Representatives have more “urgent” matters to tackle and this backlog means ABS-CBN will be an agenda for them “in May at the earliest”. Unless the Senate is in a position to dictate its wishes upon the House, there really is not much that can be argued against this reality.
As for the legal troubles of the network, that one is between the Solicitor General’s Office (SGO) headed by Jose Calida and the Philippine courts. It is a legal matter outside of the jurisdiction of Congress which can only mount initiatives in aid of legislation.
Indeed, Senator Grace Poe herself asserted that this recent inquiry is just that — in aid of legislation. What sorts of new laws or amendments to existing laws this exercise will yield is still a mystery. However, there is cause to doubt the credibility of this hearing when considering the fact that Poe has vested interests in ABS-CBN that could make her partial to the interests of the network.
It seems, this hearing is a failure by design even before it could even get off the ground — an astounding waste of taxpayers’ funds on an utterly pointless exercise.
Webmaster of Get Real Philippines