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MANILA – Through earthquakes and typhoons, floods and political turmoil, Fe Repalde knew he could count on a constant: His little flickering television was always tuned to ABS-CBN, one of the most influential networks in the Philippines.
But on May 5, amid the coronavirus blockade that has kept slum dwellers tied to their shacks, Ms. Repalde’s television went dark when President Rodrigo Duterte effectively turn off the broadcasting giant.
Gone are the highlights of basketball and juicy soap operas. Above all, news anchors and reporters for the TV Patrol news program had been silenced, just as a pandemic has made information essential.
“Now, we don’t know what’s going on,” Repalde said, as a flock of ducks deposited droppings on the floor of her shabby cabin, which she shares with her husband and four children.
“We cannot turn to television news to tell us what to do,” he added.
Mr. Duterte’s government has attributed the closure of ABS-CBN to anomalies in license renewals. But critics say the move was even more evidence of an increasingly dominant government using a crisis like the coronavirus to combat dissent.
Human Rights Watch said the shutdown “reeks of political revenge.”
Morgan Ortagus, the State Department spokeswoman, said Washington was “concerned about the situation regarding ABS-CBN.”
“An independent media outlet also helps keep our society safe and healthy, particularly in light of the Covid-19 pandemic we are currently facing,” he said.
For decades, the Philippines has enjoyed one of the freest media environments in Asia, with newspapers and television networks exchanging breathless gossip and investigative scoops.
But the country’s journalists have also been singled out for their outspokenness, and the Philippines ranks as one of the world’s most dangerous places for reporters, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
While corrupt local leaders were blamed for ordering visits to radio journalists, Duterte has led a national campaign against those who dare to challenge him. He has called reporters “vultures” and “motherfuckers.”
Last year, he chased Rappler, a news site that has covered Mr. Duterte’s drug war, with his bloody history of extrajudicial executions. Rappler editor Maria Ressa, a respected veteran journalist, has several pending legal cases against her that could lead to years in jail.
ABS-CBN is the first television network to be silenced by Mr. Duterte, and its influence was felt with greater intensity in the populated towns of slums such as Leagues, where Ms. Repalde, 43, lives.
His home, located between a new highway and a shopping center, lacks its own electricity supply. To run your most important household appliances, a small electric fan, and a small television, Repalde relies on a car battery, which it pays to recharge every other day at a nearby store.
With the closure, Ms. Repalde’s two adult children lost their jobs as a shop assistant and waitress. They had spent their time watching ABS-CBN.
“I voted for Duterte in the last election,” said Repalde. “ABS-CBN was just reporting and doing its job. They shouldn’t have closed it.
The 25-year-old television network franchise expired earlier this month, and its representatives say it had submitted all the necessary documentation for a renovation. But the House of Representatives, controlled by Duterte’s allies, addressed the issue for three years. On May 5, the National Telecommunications Commission ordered the disconnection of the network.
Last December, Duterte warned the López family, the network’s billionaire owners, to sell the business because their franchise would not be renewed. “I’ll see to it that you’re out,” Duterte said.
The blackout is the first time that ABS-CBN has been off the air since 1986, when a popular revolt toppled the regime of dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Eugenio López Jr., former president of ABS-CBN, was imprisoned by Marcos, but eventually escaped and fled to the United States, where he galvanized other exiled activists to campaign for a return to democracy in the Philippines.
SELDA, a group of activists who were tortured during Marcos’s martial law era, said Duterte, a self-proclaimed admirer of the dictator, was following the same playbook.
Closing ABS-CBN “was no different than what happened during martial law,” the group said in a statement. “This abominable act by the current Duterte administration further exposes the true character of the regime.”
On Wednesday, the country’s House of Representatives passed a bill to grant the network a provisional license. The legislation would still need Senate approval, where Senator Risa Hontiveros said she wanted to send the message that “thousands will die from this virus” if ABS-CBN is silenced.
Regina Reyes, news director for ABS-CBN, has migrated TV Patrol, the flagship news program, to digital platforms. One day last week, the show received more than 8.7 million views on Facebook and YouTube. Its competitor, GMA Network, managed only a fraction of that audience for its news program.
More than 90 percent of Filipinos still receive their news from television, Reyes said.
“The public are the real losers here,” he said.
In the backstage of last Thursday, TV Patrol news anchor Noli de Castro, the country’s former vice president, examined several newspapers with articles about the ABS-CBN shutdown. He was relaxed, but his other hosts seemed nervous. “We are the story of the day,” he said.
News of that day focused largely on the government’s coronavirus measures, although much of the program was devoted to stories about the station’s closure.
