“My unsolicited advice to Rep. Plaza is to examine these facts and immediately distance himself from this troika of greed.”
by Ducky Paredes
Rep. Rodolfo Plaza is a congressman who does his job and wants only to do well; Ompong may not be fully aware that he is being used in a shakedown operation by a female reporter who had been fired by a major daily and her husband, a self-proclaimed publicist.
Congressman Plaza filed a bill seeking the repeal of the franchise granted 25 years ago to what is now a leading radio station in Luzon broadcasting from the province of Pampanga.
Among the reasons cited by the solon in seeking the repeal was the alleged impropriety of a new investor coming into the radio station. This is debunked by another congressman — the very author of the Republic Act (RA) which granted the franchise.
But the real reason for the attack on radio station GV Broadcasting System and its new investor goes much deeper than that.
It has to do with the reporter’s demand for the new investor to pay her several millions for the role she supposedly played in facilitating the investor’s entry into GV Broadcasting.
The reporter (with a colorful past) was not paid for the simple reason that the services she allegedly “provided” the investor exists only in her mind. Having been refused her unfounded demands, she threatened the investor that she would use all of her congressional contacts to exact revenge.
It is ironic that the investor had even provided work to the husband out of sheer generosity as his labor was actually neither sought nor needed. When the investor asked the husband to knock some sense into his wife, the husband replied that he cannot rein in his wife.
Then came the repeal bill authored by Rep. Plaza. The congressman may want to know that copies of his bill had been sent by a former senator-cum-labor leader to various foreign companies to convince them not to do business with GV Broadcasting.
The ex-senator is an uncle of the journalist’s husband. They share the same surname.
Among the recipients of the ex-senator’s letters warning them about the repeal move in Congress against GV Broadcasting were:
Chase Carey, president and chief executive officer of US satellite broadcasting firm Direct TV Group, Inc. based in El Segundo, California; Charles Ergen, chairman, president and CEO of another US broadcast giant DISH Network Corp.; and Robert Bednarek, president and CEO of SES New Skies, a Danish company.
Included in the letters were copies of Plaza’s HB 5028, which seeks to repeal RA 8169, which granted GV Broadcasting its franchise; and RA 8591, which amended it.
The fact that the ex-senator, who is the uncle of the publicist (also fired by another solon for sheer incompetence) of the greedy conjugal twin, has been undertaking a demolition job on GV Broadcasting with foreign companies as target audience should leave no doubt as to what motivates the trio. He has also been sending off press releases attacking the new investor on another matter. This makes the ex-senator a main player in the shakedown operation!
My unsolicited advice to Rep. Plaza is to examine these facts and immediately distance himself from this troika of greed before he is perceived as a witting party to the shakedown. It would do well for him to withdraw his repeal bill, which according to Rep. Carmelo Lazatin was without any basis.
Lazatin gives Plaza the benefit of the doubt: “I believe that my colleague, Rep. Plaza, was provided with false and malicious information by a group of people as part of an ongoing effort to discredit GV Broadcasting and its shareholders.”
Representing the 1st district of Pampanga where GV Broadcasting operates, Lazatin brushed aside the claim that the entry of the new investor into the radio violated its franchise.
On the contrary, Lazatin points out that Section 10 of GV’s franchise specifically encouraged it to seek new investors when it says: “The issuance of shares to any investor pursuant to or in connection with any increase in grantee’s authorized capital stock which shall result in the dilution of the stockholdings of the grantee’s then existing stockholders.”
Lazatin should know the provisions of GV’s franchise since he authored RA 8169 and can vouch for the integrity of GV’s founding investors, knowing them as his constituents and as respected entrepreneurs in Pampanga.
In fact, Lazatin said he encouraged GV to seek new investors when its shareholders told him of their desire to seek new capital to be able to take a slice of the market for emerging broadcast technologies.
GV Broadcasting System has been operating for 25 years and now the top radio stations in Pampanga and Batangas, namely DWGV 99.1 MHZ, DWGV 792 Khz and DZGV 99.9 Mhz.
Imagine the howl of protest from Kapampangans and Batangueños if these top-drawing stations would be forced out of the air just because the reporter wanted a P50-million windfall without betting on the lotto. It would be akin to shutting down dzRH, the only station that can boast of a nationwide broadcast from just one microphone; something unthinkable.
For more than two decades now, the GV radio stations have been providing jobs, local and national government revenues and public service through news reports and entertainment.
According to Lazatin, both the original and amended franchise of GV Broadcasting had been thoroughly scrutinized by Congress, thus their grant to the company. Now, will a motley crew motivated by multi-million reasons be allowed to make a mockery of Congress and to destroy the media institutions that are the DWGV radio stations.
Pure unmitigated, conjugal greed is at the bottom of this issue.
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hvp 10.15.08)
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