[OPINION] ABS-CBN: Lessons learned and unlearned

'There is definitely no way that what [Duterte], as judge, jury, and executioner, did to them can be justified, but oligarch may not be an altogether inapt description: Powerbroker, kingmaker, the Lopezes undeniably were.'

The tragedy that has befallen ABS-CBN – arbitrarily denied the renewal of its broadcast franchise in a crackdown that is far from done or justified – takes me back through history I myself lived, and observed from various points that all in all make for a vantage position – from the personal to the professional and through the shades between them. It’s a history that nags at me now, insinuating itself, intimating that without it I could not hope to be any help in making things better understood.

Though technically superior, the Chronicle was very far from the ideal newspaper for the basic anomaly that its owners showed not the slightest hesitation in using it to protect or further their political and business interests. Their kingmaking powers were applied through their paper most blatantly to unseat Diosdado Macapagal and in his place install Marcos in the presidential election of 1965 and sustain him in power, and, when they began to fall out with Marcos...

In our own varied dealings, I saw in him a genuine sense of public service. Indeed, I thought its motto rang truest when he was the publisher of the revivedI have run or been involved in the running of [not a few] publications, but I have not been given as much independence as an editor as in the revived Chronicle. In fact, I could not have asked for more.

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