Sequestered RPN-9 winds down news production

MANILA, Philippines - Radio Philippines Network (RPN) Channel 9 is no longer a government station and any retrenchment of employees must comply with the Labor Code, Malacañang said yesterday.

Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) said RPN-9 was placed under his office’s supervision by virtue of Executive Order 4.

“Be that as it may, the PCOO continues to supervise the operations and management of RPN 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 RPN,” he said. One of the government’s representatives to the RPN board, Tonypet Albano, resigned on Aug. 31 and only one remains, Deedee Siytangco, he added.

Coloma said RPN 9 management has informed his office that notices of retrenchment have already been given to some 200 employees of the network.

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

Coloma said RPN-9 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 Solar Group to the extent of 34 percent,” he said. 

“And, from that time, Solar has been a block timer of RPN 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 Solar was allowed to do the debt-to-equity conversion.”

Coloma said the conversion was allowed precisely because RPN-9 could not meet its contractual obligations to the employees.

The government 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, RPN-9 officer-in-charge Robert Rivera said it’s business as usual and they continue their dialogue with the labor union.

“We continue to air (the news program) NewsWatch until such time all concerned parties are duly notified, including some sponsors,” he said.

Some employees of RPN-9 said NewsWatch, which premiered in 1979, stopped airing as of yesterday. 

They were given notices that they could decide to report for work or not until Nov. 15, the end of their services, employees said.

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

Raymon Tomale Jr., RPN-9 Supervisors’ Union president, and National Alliance of Broadcasters’ Unions Federation secretary-general, said the offer was not in compliance with their collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

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

Tomale said RPN-9 employees agreed last week to hold a series of consultations with management headed by Rivero 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. 

Tomale 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.

RPN-9 announced the other day that close to 200 workers will be retrenched effective Nov. 15 as unpaid debts and financial losses continued to mount.

RPN-9 had struggled to raise funds needed to continue operations and pay employees regularly. 

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

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