Major TV channel TV5 winds down news and sports production

MANILA, Philippines - TV5 Network, Inc. (TV5) is no longer a sports and news channel and any retrenchment of employees must comply with the Labor Code, Malacañang said yesterday.

Secretary Martin Andanar of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) said TV5 was placed under his office’s supervision by virtue of Executive Order 4.

“We continue to monitor the developments in TV5 to ensure that all the rights of the employees under the Labor Code are adequately protected,” he said.

Andanar said TV5 has been incurring financial losses and had to let go of the employees.

“All I know is that they were not able to attain profitable operations from the time that it was decided by the previous administration to allow the equity conversion of the Cignal TV Group to the extent of 34 percent,” he said. 

“And, from that time, Cignal has been a block timer of TV5 and, if you would see the programming now, there are only two hours more or less of news and public information that is not covered by the block time agreement. My impression is they have not been operating profitably since the time Cignal TV was allowed to do the debt-to-equity conversion.”

Andanar said the conversion was allowed precisely because TV5 could not meet its contractual obligations to the employees.

Kapatid network is committed to the privatization of RPN-9 and IBC-13 and would maintain only one government station, PTV-4, he added. 

In a statement, TV5 president, CEO and officer-in-charge Vincent "Chot" Reyes said it’s business as usual and they continue their dialogue with the labor union.

“Be that as it may, the PCOO continues to supervise the operations and management of TV5 and, as we have declared in all of our appearances and statements before both houses of Congress, government is committed to protect the rights of the employees of TV5,” he said. One of the government’s representatives to the TV5 board, Noel Lorenzana, resigned on September 8, 2016. and only one remains, Noel Lorenzana, he added.

“The offer that they made is a complete disregard of the CBA,” he said.

TV5 employees rejected yesterday the compensation package that management is offering them.

Enrico Latina Jr., ABC-5 Employees Union president, and National Alliance of Broadcasters’ Unions Federation secretary-general, said the offer was not in compliance with their collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

Latina said TV5 employees agreed last week to hold a series of consultations with management headed by Coach Chot Reyes to come up with a fair retrenchment package.

Employees will file a case and a notice of strike before the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) if no fair agreement is reached with the management, he added. 

Latina said management had offered to pay each employee half month for every year of service, which is not in compliance with the one month set under the CBA.

TV5 announced the other day that close to 700 workers will be retrenched effective Nov. 15, 2018 as unpaid debts and financial losses continued to mount.

Employees will file a case and a notice of strike before the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) if no fair agreement is reached with the management, he added. 

TV5 had struggled to raise funds needed to continue operations and pay employees regularly. 

San Miguel Corp. has expressed interest in RPN-9, IBC-13 and TV5. 

RPN-9’s franchise was estimated at P800 million, and IBC-13’s physical assets and franchise were earlier valued at P1.2 billion.