ABS-CBN nixes Erap ad airing

Network says ad claim on economy not substantiated 


For a television network that claims to be credible and fair, the giant network ABS-CBN again showed its bias as it disproved its claims at fairness, impartiality and credibility, with its refusal to broadcast an advertisement of presidential candidate former President Joseph Estrada, focusing on his his achievements as president during his two year’s stay in Malacañang.

This is not the first time ABS-CBN has refused to air advertisements being placed by Estrada and his camp.
Earlier, the giant TV network had refused to air the infomercial of Estrada that had a video of the late President Cory Aquino apologizing to him for her participation in the Edsa ll coup d’etat, saying she had made mistake in helping the coup plotters in ousting Estrada.

Despite the fact that this incident was aired by the network itself, and that the video footage came from the ABS-CBN cameras and news programs, ABS-CBN network still refused to air the infomercial. It was clear then that the network refused to air Estrada’s informercial as it was behind the candidacy of Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino.

GMA network, which according to a survey, is deemed by respondents as the most credible network, and whose slogan is impartiality and crediblity, lived up to its name when it aired the Estrada infomercial without any conditions, finding nothing wrong with the ad.

Similarly, GMA-TV also accepted for airing the ad on the economic gains and priorities under the Estrada administration without conditions, which ABS-CBN refused to air.

Much earlier, when Estrada was in detention in Tanay, Rizal, he also had a couple of advertisements for ABS-CBN airing, where he put out the survey findings showing that the majority of the Filipinos did not believe he was guilty of plunder, among other ads that were based on facts. They were turned down by ABS-CBN.

ABS-CBN has also shown its bias against Estrada even in its newsprograms.
In one instance, with the program Media in Focus, the spokesmen of Aquino and other presidential candidates were invited — except for the spokesmen of Estrada.

Even during his declaration to run for the presidency at the Plaza Moriones in Tondo, while the news program carried it, the anchor however, ensured that her panel guests were all anti-Estrada guests, who all said he would be disqualified and that he no longer had the people to vote for him.

Thus, while Estrada’s declaration was in a small window box, the anchor and her guests were attacking Estrada.

The same was done during the filing of the presidential candidates’ filing of certificates of candidacies. While all other candidates, Aquino and Villar’s filing was uninterrupted by commentaries from the TV anchors.
When it came to Estrada’s turn, there went again the anchor, having yet another anti-Erap analyst commenting on his being disqualified.

This time around, ABS-CBN claimed it had disapproved the ad of Estrada which says that the Estrada administration had the highest budget for health care and social services and education, as this claim has not been substantiated.

The network stated that the “information does not appear to be sufficient. The claims referred to budget, whereas the information does not indicate that the Estrada Administration had the largest budget in Education and Health Care and Social Services among all administrations.”

Sources in the Estrada camp told the Tribune yesterday that which ABS-CBN wanted the Estrada camp to do is to have a comparative table of all administrations — from the start of the American colonial period to the Arroyo presidency.

The Estrada figures were taken from official data, budget and the National Statistics Board, starting with the Marcos administration all the way to the Arroyo administration in comparison to his, during his brief two year term.

The Estrada camp provided ABS-CBN with official budget data from former budget secretary Benjamin Diokno, which showed that Estrada spent the most in economic services, social services and the lowest in debt service interests.

A source from the Estrada camp told the Tribune that the network is really showing its bias against Estrada, in now demanding the Estrada camp to provide an official certification from the Arroyo government to state that the figures given by Estrada are true and can be substantiated, knowing that this certification would not be given by Arroyo.

The sources laughed off this excuse of the network, saying that it has been airing the “legacy” claims of Arroyo, which can hardly be substantiated. Yet this has been aired.

The network has also aired Nacionalista presidential bet, Sen. Manuel “Manny” Villar’s many unsubstantiated claims in his ads, including his song that insinuates that he has swam in a pile of garbage, or that his house in Tondo was such and that he was born poor, which can be challenged and can not be substantiated.
In the same manner, Liberal Party bet Noynoy Aquino’s ad has a lot of claims that have not been asked by the network to substantiate.

Meanwhile Business consultant Peter Wallace, who was among the first to support Arroyo in 2001 after a military-backed uprising that ousted Estrada, has questioned in a recent report the supposed legacy economic achievements of Arroyo that appeared in two-page advertisements in major newspapers.

“Some truly magical numbers from a fairyland I didn’t know existed,” Wallace said of Arroyo’s trumpeted indicators.
The most recent Wallace Report titled Fairyland said Arroyo’s claim of a 4.86 percent average growth during her nine-year term must be deflated for the statistical discrepancy in the 2007 number when a drop in imports created a double negative that artificially inflated gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

He posed the argument that “nothing dramatically different occurred in 2007 that could have justified (a) 7.1 percent growth.”

“Our best estimate is around 4.8 percent if imports had grown at their historically normal rate.” he said of the 2007 economic expansion figure.

With that adjustment, average growth under GMA has been 4.7 percent. Estrada matches it. “Are we to assume from this that Estrada was as good an economic manager as Arroyo?,” he said.

The report also conceded that Estrada has a far better record than Arroyo in providing low cost shelter.
“Isn’t it a little unfair to compare the number of houses the government built in the two and a half years of Estrada with the nine years of Arroyo? On an annualized basis, Ramos built 33,982 per year, Estrada 39,306, and Arroyo 32,777 — who did better?,” the report said.

The government said the growth provided more income to the people, therefore more money to buy food but the percentage of households that experienced hunger at least once in the past three months recently hit a record-high of 24 percent or about 4.4 million households, Wallace said.

The poor definitely have gotten no benefit from the “highest average GDP growth recorded since 1966” or the “highest quarterly growth posted in 30 years” proclaimed in the government ad.
He said prices of commodities are periodically artificially low because of Arroyo’s intervention.
“Inflation, I’ll agree, is far lower and that is in part because of good management, but good management by the Central Bank, which is part of its role.

“GMA’s involvement has been to artificially control prices and create an economy where people can’t afford fair market value, so firms are forced to sell at lower margins. This is in the free market she espouses, but then doesn’t follow,” he said.

He added the Philippines attracted the least foreign direct investments (FDI) among the Asean—6 member countries during the past eight years.

The country got $12.1 billion; next lowest was Indonesia at $29.7 billion; little old Singapore did best at $133 billion, 11 times the Philippine level; while Malaysia and Thailand got about the same at a little over $40 billion each, he said.

On the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) boom that Arroyo claimed credit for, Wallace questioned what specific actions did this government do that were different to justify credit for this.

“The talent of the Filipino for this role did it. What policies or actions did GMA take to improve this sector? Creating a Department of ICT that this sector so urgently needs just hasn’t happened despite that I raised the subject to her three months into her presidency. The high-level, focused attention can’t be there without it,” he said.

“I could go on, but you get the message. There’s hardly an honest number in the whole two pages.
As Ben Diokno says, itfs a disgraceful waste of money. And a deliberate deception to the public that doesnft have the access to the real data like we do,” he said.