18 January 2020
PHILIPPINES: Media academic warns shutting key TV channel would be step to ‘dictatorship’
Pacific Media Centre's Professor David Robie ... a wide-ranging speech on media freedoms in the Asia-Pacific region.
Image: The Varsitarian
By Camille Abiel H. Torres, Charm Ryanne C. Magpali, Laurd Menhard Salen of The Varsitarian
MANILA (The Varsitarian/Asia Pacific Report/Pacific Media Watch): A New Zealand media academic and freedom advocate has warned that shutting down the Philippines’ largest and most
popular media network would be a move toward dictatorship.
Professor David Robie, director of the New Zealand-based Pacific Media Centre and journalism professor at Auckland
University of Technology, said President Rodrigo Duterte’s displeasure toward ABS-CBN Corporation was not enough reason
to deprive it of a franchise.
“There’s no justification in doing that [not renewing the franchise of ABS-CBN]. Doing that is moving towards
dictatorship,” Dr Robie said in the recent annual memorial John Jefferson Siler lecture-forum at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila.
ends