MANILA, Philippines — Veteran broadcast journalist Ces Oreña-Drilon and other retrenched employees of ABS-CBN on Monday morning joined the "SONAgKAISA" protest at the University of the Philippines Diliman campus hours before President Rodrigo Duterte’s fifth State of the Nation Adress.
Retrenched ABS-CBN employees, led by journalist Ces Drilon, join the SONAgKAISA rally. They're calling for the return of ABS-CBN on free TV after its application for fresh franchise was junked by a House panel on July 10. | via Davinci Maru, ABS-CBN News #SONA2020 pic.twitter.com/1JNiNuY4XP
— ABS-CBN News (@ABSCBNNews) July 27, 2020
Ces led the call for the network’s return after its franchise was denied by Congress earlier this month, a move which led to mass layoffs among ABS-CBN's thousands of workers.
Related: House panel denies ABS-CBN franchise
Apart from the ABS-CBN employees, the protest was comprised of multi-sectoral groups and individuals numbering in the hundreds, with the rally turnout expected to be the largest in the country under quarantine so far.