ABS-CBN lost its right to broadcast in two steps. In May 2020 its 25-year congressional franchise ran out and the regulator ordered it off air. Then, on 10 July 2020, lawmakers voted 70 to 11 against giving it a new one.

In the Philippines a broadcaster needs a franchise from Congress to operate. ABS-CBN had applied to renew, but the application sat in a Congress controlled by allies of President Rodrigo Duterte, and the coronavirus lockdown delayed hearings further.

The night the screens went blank

The franchise ended on Monday 4 May. The next evening, just before 8pm, ABS-CBN went off air on the order of the National Telecommunications Commission.

Lawmakers had not expected it. The commission’s top officials had agreed to grant a temporary licence while Congress weighed the renewal. Franz Alvarez, who chaired the House committee on legislative franchises, said he was surprised the commission went back on that pledge.

The network was no small station. It regularly reached more than 15 million homes across TV, radio and online, and it employed about 11,000 people. In its own statement it said millions of Filipinos would lose their news source in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Why the government wanted it gone

Duterte had made his hostility public. He accused the network of refusing to air his campaign advertisements, which the BBC dates to 2016. In a December speech he told it that its contract was about to expire, and that it would be “better off selling it”.

A second route ran through the courts. In February 2020, Solicitor-General Jose Calida asked the Supreme Court to revoke ABS-CBN’s franchises, alleging it broke a constitutional ban on foreign investment in Philippine media. ABS-CBN denied it.

The network had also covered Duterte’s anti-drugs campaign critically, a crackdown in which thousands were killed. Government officials denied the shutdown had anything to do with press freedom, and said everyone had to comply with the law. The presidential spokesman, Harry Roque, called the franchise decision “a sole prerogative of Congress”.

The vote

On 10 July a large majority of the House committee rejected the request for a 25-year franchise, calling the network “undeserving”. Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch called it “a black day for media freedom”. The network can appeal.

It was not the first time ABS-CBN had gone dark. In September 1972, after Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, the state seized its headquarters and used its channels for propaganda. It reopened 14 years later, when Marcos fell.