Second of three parts
THAT is, if we are to respect the Constitution, which bans the
slightest foreign control or even a single dollar of investment in media
enterprises.
The previous Duterte government was faithful to our
Constitution, and bold enough that its Solicitor General Jose Calida filed
a successful suit to close down Rappler for violating that ban, which the Court
of Appeals upheld. I'm sure the Marcos government will be as faithful to the
Constitution and as bold in closing down a company controlled by a foreigner.
 |
| (photo credit to Manila Times) |
The media empire controlled by the Indonesian tycoon Anthoni
Salim through PLDT Inc. is a giant compared to Rappler. His holding
firm, MediaQuest, includes mainly the TV5 network and its two dozen radio
stations all over the country, the Philippine
Star, (partly) the Philippine Daily Inquirer,
and Businessworld ( all of which
have internet editions) as well as Cignal TV, the country's largest
satellite direct-to-home television service. It is by far the biggest media
firm in the country with platforms in print, broadcast and on the World Wide
Web.
Do we have a different set of laws for a small firm violating
the Constitution and another for a behemoth?
What makes the Indonesian tycoon's creation of his media empire
in the Philippines so scandalous is that he used mainly Filipino
money since 2012 — the contributions of the 18,900 PLDT employees to their
pension fund, called the PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund (BTF) — as capital for
MediaQuest. (In 2009, the BTF was also used to purchase 10.2 percent of
Meralco, which concealed from the market the fact that it was the Indonesian
tycoon (through his holding company First Pacific that was making a
move to capture the power distribution firm).
MediaQuest
All
other companies, to ensure that such funds are unimpaired so this could finance
employees' retirement, invest these in blue-chip stocks and risk-less
government securities. In 2012 though, PLDT used P14.5 billion of the BTF's
money accumulated over two decades — 80 percent of its P18.4 billion assets —
to set up through its corporate vehicle BTF Holdings MediaQuest which went on a binge to buy the media
firms starting in 2012. Philstar was reportedly sold by the Belmonte family for
a whooping P4 billion.
Based on PLDT's 2020 report to the US Securities and
Exchange Commission, MediaQuest and BTF Holdings account for 71 percent of
BTF's assets. This puts the pension fund at risk of being unable to fund its
member employees' retirement pensions since media enterprises in the country
(except for GMA7 and the defunct ABS-CBN) are losing enterprises. I doubt if
PLDT's employees are aware of where their contributions to the fund (10 percent
of their salaries) are going. PLDT and even Smart have even committed hundreds
of millions of advertising placements in TV5 to keep it afloat.
Despite this help, MediaQuest's investments, in fact, have not
been generating profits in the tight, competitive media market, so PLDT had to
report huge actuarial losses on these: P6.8 billion, P11 billion and P5.1
billion for 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively. As a result, the value of the
pension plan's assets — which determines its capability to meet pension
payments — was drastically reduced to P6 billion, or one-fourth of its P24
billion value in 2011.
PD
1018
Even if PLDT gets away with the argument that BTF is a Filipino
entity since its beneficiaries are Filipinos, the Constitution and the
Presidential Decree 1018 ban not just a single peso of foreign investments in a
media firm, but foreign control in whatever form.
In the case of BTF, all of its five-man board are appointed by
PLDT's board of directors, dominated by First Pacific representatives because
of its 25.6 percent share ownership of the firm and the Japanese NTT Docomo's
10.6 percent.
Certainly a demonstration of the power of media, Salim's chief
executive officer for his conglomerate, Manuel V. Pangilinan —
portrayed in media as the owner of the Indonesian's conglomerate that it is
often reported as the "MVP Group" — owns less than 1 percent of PLDT,
a level unchanged for 22 years since it was bought by First Pacific in 1999,
with the backing of then-president Joseph Estrada. I cannot fathom why
Salim has refused to increase the shareholdings of an executive responsible for
the growth of his conglomerate in the Philippines. For Salim it seems,
Pangilinan is his employee and nothing else.
Bloomberg reports that it is former foreign affairs secretary Albert
del Rosario (a longtime associate of Salim) who is the current chairman of
BTF Holdings. He was also the chairman of BTF when it invested in MediaQuest in
2012. The two other current board members are Ray Espinosa, the Salim
empire's chief legal counsel, who is also board chairman of Philippine Star and
BusinessWorld, and PLDT chief financial officer Anabelle Chua. PLDT hasn't
released the names of the two other BTF Holdings board members.
Salim
Salim is taking us Filipinos for fools if he claims MediaQuest
is a Filipino corporation without any control by the PLDT, a foreign-controlled
firm.
In fact, PLDT management back in 2014 admitted to the US SEC
that PLDT exercises "significant influence" over two of MediaQuest's
wholly owned subsidiaries — implying of course such influence over MediaQuest,
their mother firm.
In a letter responding to a query by an SEC investigator, PLDT
Corporate Secretary Ma. Lourdes C. Rausa-Chan wrote:
"PLDT's management determined based on the
guidance in IAS 28 that PLDT exercised significant influence over Cignal TV and
Satventures for purposes of the financial reports included in the 2014 report
Form 20-F due to the following factors:
PLDT, through ePLDT's ownership of PDRs, held an
economic interest in Cignal TV and Satventures, which entitled ePLDT to cash
and non-cash distributions on the shares underlying the PDRs.
E-PLDT
There were common directors and officers between
PLDT and its subsidiaries, on the one hand, and Cignal TV and Satventures, on
the other hand. Certain managerial personnel and employees were seconded from
PLDT and its subsidiaries to Cignal TV and Satventures."
The PLDT executive was referring to the P13 billion
that a PLDT unit, ePLDT, gave to MediaQuest in 2013 and 2014 for it to set up
Cignal TV and Satventures, in the form of Philippine Depositary Receipts
(PDRs). With such huge funds, Cignal TV was able to quickly overcome its
competitors and is now the biggest cable TV enterprise.
In the Rappler case, SEC ruled — upheld by the
Court of Appeals — that the PDRs merely concealed the capital infusion by a
foreign firm, which is still a violation of the Constitution. How much did
Rappler get in foreign funds, for which it was ordered closed down as this
violated the Constitution? P50 million, a tiny fraction of the P13 billion that
the majority foreign-owned PLDT gave to MediaQuest.
Do we have a different set of laws if a foreigner
invests billions of pesos in a media firm, and another if it invests only
millions?
But does it matter if a foreign firm controls a
media empire? It certainly does, as I will narrate a specific case on Monday,
which even involved our foreign relations with the biggest superpower in the
region.
The
Manila Times
September
9, 2022
BE YOUR OWN BOSS! Join
the most trending Online Negosyo now.
For only 17,888 you
can have 5 online shops of various food, health and beauty products, plus Ninja
Ion and Coppermask.
Reserve your slots
now. Send a message by clicking the button below.
Ask me how, leave me a message in https://www.facebook.com/siomai.online0212/
What can you say about this?
Share us your thoughts by simply
leaving on the comment section below. For more news updates, feel free to visit
our site often.
Stay updated with today's relevant
news and trends by hitting the LIKE button.
Thanks for dropping by and reading
this post.
Report from Manila Times
Disclaimer: Contributed articles does not reflect the view of THE
PH CHRONICLES. This website cannot guarantee the legitimacy of some of
the information contributed to us. The material and information on
this website is for general information purposes only. You may do additional
research if you find some information doubtful. No part of this article
maybe reproduced without permission from this website.
0 Comments