Shutting down SMNI

Francisco Tatad

THE House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading a bill revoking the legislative franchise of Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI), the broadcasting arm of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) church led by televangelist Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, who calls himself the “adopted son of God” and has broken ties with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., whom he had supported openly in the last elections. He has since made common cause with disgruntled Marcos supporters who are calling for his resignation.

Quiboloy is facing allegations of sexual abuse before the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality. But he has refused to be investigated by the committee, saying it is not a court of law that has the power to conduct criminal investigations. Many neutral observers, including Catholics who are not at all Quiboloy fans or followers, support this position, which is based on the Constitution and the rules of parliamentary procedure.

SMNI has been accused of violating the terms of its franchise, of spreading false news in particular, as when its two commentators, Eric Celis and Lorraine Badoy, discussed on the air Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez’s alleged traveling expenses of over a billion pesos. This figure turned out to be highly inflated, and the broadcasters/commentators were compelled to say they were not making an accusation but simply asking a question. Apparently, this failed to undo the damage and placate the Speaker.

An overwhelming House majority voted for the SMNI bill, and it now goes up to the Senate for bicameral action. If it passes the Senate, then SMNI’s goose is cooked; it will lose its 25-yearlong franchise, which is otherwise set to expire in 2044. SMNI and its supporters all over Mindanao have denounced this as a brutal suppression of press freedom, and this has fueled widespread protest, including a “Marcos resign campaign” in Mindanao and beyond.

I was talking to former presidential legal counsel Salvador “Sal” Panelo at the wake of a departed friend, and he said that the proposed revocation of the SMNI franchise would only affect the airing of “free TV” but not YouTube or Sky Cable. It would therefore have little impact on the punishing effect of social media, which has become the most effective means of propaganda against the government. Since the government has no regulatory control over social media, it would be at the mercy of its freewheeling practitioners who are all over YouTube.

Without the proposed House punitive action, SMNI would remain bound by the canons of responsible broadcasting, not necessarily according to the standards of BBC or American television, but at least as practiced by the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkasters sa Pilipinas, when it embarked on “self-regulation” as an alternative to government-imposed rules and regulations.

There is a fair chance for social media practitioners and government spokesmen to sit down and agree on certain norms that would allow a fair amount of professional broadcasting free from the personal abuse, vituperation and swear words that have come to dominate the language of social media vloggers.

This means that if the government is looking forward to ending the propaganda war that the followers of former president Rodrigo Duterte and Quiboloy are waging against it in Mindanao, it had better review its assumptions. The situation could be more dangerous than the one that followed the shutdown of ABS-CBN, the nation’s leading network in 2020.

When the Duterte administration decided not to renew the ABS-CBN legislative franchise after 25 years, the TV network simply bowed to the government decision without continuing its protests. Its professional staff just migrated to other organizations and professions. This may not happen in the case of SMNI, which is but a broadcasting arm of the KOJC, whose head is allied with Duterte in opposing the administration it previously supported and is fighting a constitutionally infirm Senate committee investigation.

Because Quiboloy represents not only SMNI but above all his church, his protest will not simply be about the suppression of press freedom but above all about religious persecution. This is a much larger issue, capable of challenging passionate individuals to sacrifice everything for their cause. This makes Quiboloy and his church and SMNI a dangerous element in the propaganda war against the government.

US authorities are reported to have filed sex trafficking charges against Quiboloy and are set to extradite him on the basis of these charges. These could have a decisive effect on the pastor’s future. But until we see it happen, we won’t know its impact on his reputed 6 million church members, which is not a negligible number. The political situation in the country is not at a standstill, and various political crises could expose the KOJC to new challenges and opportunities; we cannot predict what is yet to come.

The KOJC is not nearly half as large and powerful as the most numerous Roman Catholic Church, which has figured in the removal of two presidents in 38 years; it may not be able to create a tectonic rupture in society, but it could still cause a lot of unnecessary problems for the administration.

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