By Hannah Torregoza The Senate’s preliminary hearing on the ABS-CBN Corporation’s franchise will not yield a committee report as they will wait for the House of Representatives to transmit its version of the measure to the Upper Chamber. Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian
(Senate of the Philippines / MANILA BULLETIN) Senator Sherwin Gatchalian made the announcement as he led the Senate public services committee in tackling the various bills on ABS-CBN’s franchise that are pending in the Senate on Tuesday. “This preliminary hearing will not yield a committee report. We will be waiting for the transmittal of the House version, hopefully today, but due to unforeseen circumstances, that was delayed,” Gatchalian said during the conduct of a “hybrid” hearing on ABS-CBN's franchise renewal. “We deemed it necessary to proceed with a preliminary hearing,” said Gatchalian, vice chairman of the Senate Public Services panel. Sen. Francis Tolentino, during the hearing, questioned the constitutionality of the Senate hearing on ABS-CBN’s franchise bills saying it may be “premature” since the House has yet to pass its version of the bill. Tolentino pointed out that under the Constitution, the Lower house must first approve a franchise bill before it can be tackled in a Senate plenary. “We might be violating the Constitution if we hear a bill in anticipation of the bill which has not yet been passed,” Tolentino said. But both Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri and Senate minority leader Franklin Drilon pointed out that the Senate can discuss the bills provided that a committee report will not be released. “We have been doing this for years, this is our tradition. The budget is heard by the Senate as early as August even before the House can approve its version,” Drilon said. “There is no violation of the origination clause of the Constitution. We can tackle this today. The chairperson can just withhold the committee report,” Zubiri said. Senate President Vicente Sotto III, for his part, said he was surprised that the Lower House chose to recall the second approval of the ABS-CBN franchise bill on Monday instead of approving the provisional franchise it passed the other week on third reading. Nevertheless, he said nobody is challenging or opposing the Senate conducting a preliminary hearing on ABS-CBN’s franchise renewal. “We really do not know what shape, color, or size of the bill that would emanate from the House would come out. We will just listen to the resource persons now,” Sotto said. Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson agreed with Sotto saying he too has no disagreement “with this committee hearing being held today.” “My only point is, we cannot compare the budget measure with a legislative franchise measure simply because what we are tackling in the committee on finance is the national expenditure program (NEP), not the House version of the budget measure,” Lacson said.