Philippine Tycoons Oscar Lopez, Manuel Pangilinan Call Off Media Deal Amid Congressional Inquiry

Philippine tycoons Oscar Lopez and Manuel Pangilinan have called off a proposed media deal announced just three weeks ago after politicians threatened to launch a congressional inquiry.

Under the deal inked on August 10, the Lopez-controlled ABS-CBN. agreed to buy a 35% stake in TV5 Network—which is owned by Pangilinan-led MediaQuest, a unit of telecom giant PLDT—for 2.2 billion pesos ($39 million). Both parties “have mutually agreed to terminate the investment agreement,” ABS-CBN said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

The deal would have helped revive ABS-CBN’s dominance in the Philippine media industry. Congress rejected the company’s application to renew its free-to-air broadcast franchise for another 25 years in May 2020, after the network drew the ire of former President Rodrigo Duterte, who vowed to force it off the airwaves after failing to broadcast some of his political ads during the 2016 presidential campaign. Its former broadcast frequencies have been re-assigned to billionaire Manuel Villar’s Advanced Media Broadcasting System, which is preparing to launch its network later this year.

The cancellation comes a week after ABS-CBN and TV5 said they had agreed to “pause” the transaction to address issues raised by the National Telecommunications Commission and some lawmakers. The proposed sale of a stake in the Lopez group’s cable TV unit SkyCable to MediaQuest’s Cignal Cable has also been terminated.

Since the government revoked its free-to-air franchise, ABS-CBN has been broadcasting its shows through digital channels and some of its content are also being aired by TV5. The company remains in the red, posting a further net loss of 1.4 billion pesos in the six months ended June. Its shares tumbled 13% to 9.31 pesos in afternoon trading on the Philippine bourse.