SIX YEARS AGO TODAY, ABS-CBN WENT DARK. THIS IS HOW THE DUTERTE ADMINISTRATION DID IT.

On the evening of May 5, 2020, ABS-CBN's flagship news program TV Patrol went on the air for the last time on free television. The anchors said goodnight. The signal cut. Forty-two free TV stations, eighteen FM stations, and five AM stations across the country went silent. About 11,000 jobs were on the line that day. Roughly 6,000 of those people would lose their jobs in the months that followed, by the network's own count of pension fund payouts to retrenched employees.

Six years later, the network has not been restored. The franchise has not been renewed. And the man whose administration engineered the shutdown has, on the record, admitted that he did exactly what his own spokesperson spent two years denying he did.

Today is the anniversary. This is what happened, in the order it happened, with the receipts.

WHAT ACTUALLY DROVE THE HOSTILITY

The story that got told in real time was about an unaired campaign ad. Duterte said ABS-CBN swindled him during the 2016 election by failing to air his political advertisements. He brought it up in speeches. He brought it up in press conferences. He kept bringing it up.

That story was true. It was also incomplete.

The fuller picture, documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, and Reporters Without Borders, is that ABS-CBN had been one of the most consistent broadcast critics of the Duterte drug war. The network's reporting on extrajudicial killings, on family members of drug suspects, on the bodies left in alleys with cardboard signs, was a defining feature of Philippine journalism between 2016 and 2020.

ABS-CBN news head Regina "Ging" Reyes told CPJ at the time that the network's coverage of state violence was a major reason for the targeting. Reporters Without Borders eventually designated Duterte as a "press freedom predator" specifically citing the campaign against ABS-CBN.

So when you read the timeline below, hold both motivations in mind. The ad grievance was the line Duterte gave the public. The drug war coverage was the line his administration would not say out loud. Both were operating at the same time.

THE TIMELINE

April 2017 and December 2019. Duterte threatens, twice in public, that ABS-CBN's franchise will not be renewed. The December version is the sharpest: "If you are expecting na ma-renew 'yan, I'm sorry. You're out. I will see to it that you're out."

February 10, 2020. Solicitor General Jose Calida files a quo warranto petition before the Supreme Court asking the court to nullify ABS-CBN's franchise. The petition cites the network's KBO pay-per-view channel and the issuance of Philippine Depositary Receipts as grounds. It is filed 84 days before the franchise's scheduled May 4 expiration.

February 2020. Asked about the case, Duterte tells reporters he is keeping a "healthy distance" and "I am not going to interfere." Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo distances Duterte from Calida's petition.

May 4, 2020. ABS-CBN's twenty-five-year congressional franchise, originally granted under Republic Act 7966 in 1995, expires.

May 5, 2020. The NTC issues a cease-and-desist order. ABS-CBN's free TV and radio operations are ordered to stop immediately. That evening, after airing TV Patrol, the network signs off the air.

This is two days after World Press Freedom Day. The Philippines is in the middle of the COVID-19 enhanced community quarantine. Filipino families dependent on free TV for pandemic information lose one of their main sources of news overnight.

June 30, 2020. NTC issues alias cease-and-desist orders against ABS-CBN TV Plus and Sky Direct, extending the shutdown to the network's digital and direct-to-home platforms.

July 10, 2020. The House Committee on Legislative Franchises, chaired by Rep. Franz Alvarez under House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, votes 70-11 to deny ABS-CBN's franchise renewal application. Government agencies including the Department of Justice, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the National Telecommunications Commission, and the Department of Labor and Employment had testified that ABS-CBN had not violated terms of its franchise. The vote went forward anyway.

That same day, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque issues a statement: "The Palace has maintained a neutral stance on the issue."

September 10, 2020. The NTC formally recalls ABS-CBN's assigned broadcast frequencies.

The shutdown is now structurally complete.

THE ADMISSION

On June 27, 2022 — three days before he stepped down from the presidency — Rodrigo Duterte spoke at the oath-taking of newly elected local officials in Davao City. His son Sebastian was being sworn in as Davao City mayor. Duterte spoke off-script about ABS-CBN.

Here is the verbatim section, captured on the official GMA News YouTube livestream and reported by VERA Files, GMA News, TV5, and others:

"Ana kawatan ng ABS-CBN kaya tinira ko talaga sila. I used the presidential powers to tell Congress that you are dealing with scoundrels. And if you continue to kowtow to them, kawawa ang Pilipino."

That is the admission. Duterte said it himself. He used presidential powers to tell Congress that ABS-CBN was a thief and that the lawmakers should not give it a franchise. He did not say it once. He repeated the sentiment in March 2022, again before stepping down, threatening that ABS-CBN "will never get to go back on air" unless it paid alleged tax dues — alleged dues that the BIR had already cleared.

Set this against two years of "I am not going to interfere" and "the Palace has maintained a neutral stance." One of those statements is true. The others were what the public was told.

THE COST IN HUMAN TERMS

About 6,000 ABS-CBN employees were retrenched as a result of the franchise loss. That number comes from the network's own statement on the resulting payouts from its pension fund. It is not an estimate from press freedom advocates or media unions. The company filed it themselves, accounting for what came out of pension obligations.

Korina Sanchez, the veteran news anchor, called it a "bloodbath."

These were not faceless layoffs. ABS-CBN was the network where many journalists, producers, technicians, drivers, makeup artists, set builders, and writers had built entire careers. The largest broadcast operation in the country went from full operation to skeleton crew in a matter of weeks.

The Commission on Human Rights, more than four years later, issued a fresh statement in November 2024 reiterating its support for media workers as ABS-CBN announced additional layoffs. The damage from May 2020 has not finished compounding.

THE LEGAL ENDING

ABS-CBN's petition asking the Supreme Court to nullify the NTC's cease-and-desist order did not produce a merits ruling. The Court eventually dismissed the case as moot. By the time the Court got around to it, the franchise had already been denied by Congress, the frequencies had been recalled, and there was nothing left to enjoin. The constitutionality of the shutdown was never adjudicated.

Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen filed a dissenting opinion arguing that the NTC's order was issued with grave abuse of discretion and violated ABS-CBN's right to due process. That dissent is the only judicial finding on the lawfulness of the shutdown. The majority did not reach the question. The damage was permanent before the court ruled, so the court declined to rule on whether the damage was lawful.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN PHILIPPINE BROADCAST HISTORY ONLY ONCE BEFORE

ABS-CBN was off the air from September 23, 1972 to September 14, 1986. That is the entire period from the declaration of martial law under Ferdinand Marcos Sr. through the People Power Revolution. The Marcos dictatorship seized the network, liquidated it, and prevented it from broadcasting.

The May 5, 2020 shutdown was the second time in the network's history that it had been forced off the air.

The first time was a dictator.

I will let you draw your own conclusions about the second.

WHAT THIS LEFT BEHIND

The chilling effect was the point. Other media companies got the message. Their franchises also depend on Congress. Their permissions to operate are also subject to political review. Cross the wrong sitting president and the same procedural levers can be pulled against them.

ABS-CBN was the loudest signal. If a network with 11,000 employees, a sixty-five-year history, and the largest broadcast footprint in the country could be silenced by an administration that "maintained a neutral stance," then nobody else was safe.

That was the message. The administration sent it, the message reached its target, and the message held. Other broadcasters covered the drug war differently after May 5, 2020. The political economy of Philippine media adjusted. Self-censorship became survival.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FREQUENCIES

On September 10, 2020, the NTC formally recalled every broadcast frequency that had been assigned to ABS-CBN. Channel 2 and digital Channel 16 in Mega Manila. Seventeen regional TV channels from Luzon to Mindanao. The 630 kHz DZMM AM frequency. The MOR FM frequencies across the country.

None of them have been returned to ABS-CBN. They were redistributed.

On January 5, 2022, the NTC issued a provisional authority to Advanced Media Broadcasting System for digital Channel 16 and temporarily assigned analog Channel 2 to AMBS for simulcast. AMBS is the broadcasting arm of the Villar family. ALLTV launched on those frequencies on September 13, 2022. The regional ABS-CBN TV frequencies, station by station, were also awarded to AMBS. The Villar family did not just get Channel 2. They got the entire former ABS-CBN national TV footprint.

The radio frequencies followed a different path. In 2023, the 630 kHz DZMM frequency was acquired by Philippine Collective Media Corporation, a subsidiary of Prime Media Holdings controlled by RYM Business Management Corporation, a holding company associated with House Speaker Martin Romualdez and his family. PCMC operates the frequency through a joint venture with ABS-CBN called Media Serbisyo Production Corporation.

So the spectrum did not flow to a single conglomerate. The Villars got the entire former ABS-CBN national TV footprint. The Romualdezes got the most valuable AM radio frequency in the country. Two of the most powerful political families in the post-2022 Philippines now hold the broadcast assets that ABS-CBN once held.

Spectrum changing hands at this scale is a redistribution of a national resource from one set of owners to another, executed through a regulatory process that was itself triggered by a Congressional vote that a sitting president would later admit he had personally pressured.

ABS-CBN AS A TENANT

ABS-CBN content is back on free television. As of January 2, 2026, the full Kapamilya Channel feed airs on ALLTV under a licensing agreement announced December 17, 2025. The channel includes TV Patrol, FPJ's Batang Quiapo, Roja, What Lies Beneath, It's Showtime, and ASAP. DZMM Radyo Patrol 630 returned to the AM band on May 29, 2025, when the station rebranded back to the iconic DZMM callsign after five years as Radyo 630.

This is the part that gets lost in shorthand commentary. ABS-CBN survived. The journalists kept journalism going. The shows came back.

But ABS-CBN survived as a content company, not as a broadcaster. The frequencies it once owned are owned by other entities now — the Villar family on television, the Romualdez family on AM radio. ABS-CBN content reaches viewers through licensing deals and joint ventures with the new frequency holders. ABS-CBN sold roughly 70 percent of its Quezon City property to Ayala Land in 2025 and divested its remaining direct-to-home satellite assets the same year. The Lopez family lost the infrastructure. Two political dynasties acquired the most valuable parts of it.

That is the most consequential thing the Duterte administration accomplished against ABS-CBN. The franchise denial was the headline. The redistribution of the broadcast spectrum was the result.

A government weaponizing the franchise lever does not necessarily silence content. It transfers control of the infrastructure that delivers content. The journalism eventually finds another channel. The frequencies do not come back.

WHAT TO REMEMBER ON THE ANNIVERSARY

A government does not have to ban journalism to silence it. It can let a franchise lapse on a technicality. It can have its solicitor general file a petition that pressures the regulator. It can have its allies in Congress vote in numbers no opposition can match. It can have its spokesperson deny everything until the boss confesses on camera two years later. And then it can let the regulator hand the recalled frequencies to other private interests, who become the new gatekeepers of what reaches Filipino households over free TV.

That is what was done. The receipts are public. Duterte said the words himself.

"Tinira ko talaga sila." I really attacked them. "I used the presidential powers." Said by the person who, while in office, claimed the opposite.

Today is the anniversary of the day the largest broadcaster in the country went dark because a sitting president said scoundrels and a Congress aligned with him voted accordingly. The journalism is back, but on someone else's airwaves. Six thousand families lost a paycheck. The Lopez broadcasting empire was carved up and reassigned. And the country is still trying to figure out what kind of press freedom you have when the franchise lever is the lever, and the lever is always available to whoever sits in Malacanang.