REPUBLIC ACT No. 2990
An Act Granting the Filipinas Broadcasting Network, Incorporated, a Franchise to Establish Radio Stations for Domestic Telecommunications, Broadcasting and Telecasting
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippine Congress Assembled:
Section 1. Subject to the provisions of the Constitution and the provisions, not inconsistent herewith, of Act Numbered Three hundred and forty-six, entitled "An Act providing for the regulation of radio stations and radio communications in the Philippine Islands, and for other purposes;" Commonwealth Act Numbered One hundred forty-six, known as the Public Service Act, and their amendments, and other applicable laws, there is hereby granted to Filipinas Broadcasting Network, Incorporated, its successors or assigns, and hereunder referred to as the "grantee," the right and privilege of constructing, installing, establishing and operating in the Philippines, at such places as the Filipinas Broadcasting Network, Incorporated, may select and the Secretary of Public Works and Communications may approve, radio stations for broadcasting, and telecasting and for the reception and transmission of messages on radio stations in the domestic public fixed point-to-point and public base, aeronautical and land mobile stations, including coastal marine service with the corresponding relay stations for the reception and transmission of wireless messages on radiotelegraphy and/or radiotelephony, radioteletype, radiophoto, facsimile, and such other types of emissions or both with vessels at sea and aircraft in the air, without or within the Philippines.
Section 2. A special right is hereby reserved to the President of the Philippines in time of war, insurrection, public peril, or other national emergency and when public safety requires, to cause the closing of the grantee’s radio station or stations or to authorize the use or possession thereof by any department of the Government without compensation to the grantee for the use of said station during the continuance of the national emergency.
Section 3. The President of the Philippines shall have the power and authority to permit the construction of said stations or any of them on any land of the public domain upon such terms and conditions as he may prescribe.
Section 4. This franchise shall continue for a period of fifty years from the date the first of said stations shall be placed in operation, and is granted upon the express condition that same shall be void unless the construction of said station be begun within two years from the date of the approval of this Act and be completed within four years from said date.
Section 5. The grantee shall file a bond in the amount of fifty thousand pesos to guarantee the full compliance and fulfillment of the conditions under which this franchise is granted. If after four years from the date of the approval of this Act, the grantee shall have fulfilled said conditions, or as soon thereafter as the grantee shall have fulfilled the same, the bond aforesaid shall be cancelled by the Government.
Section 6. (a) This franchise shall not take effect nor shall any power thereunder be exercised by the grantee until the Secretary of Public Works and Communications shall have allotted to the grantee the frequencies and wave lengths and channels to be used thereunder and determined the stations to and from which each frequency and wave length may be used, and issued to the grantee a license for such use. The Secretary of Public Works and Communications in alloting to the grantee the frequencies and wave lengths and channels referred to above, shall give due regard to the government’s program of expanding its radio telecommunications.
(b) The Secretary of Public Works and Communications, on reasonable notice to the grantee, may at any time change, or cancel, or modify, in whole or in part, any or all of the allotments of frequencies or wave lengths to be used. He may take such action:
(1) whenever in his judgment such frequencies and wave lengths have been used, or there is danger that they will be used by the grantee to impair electrical communications, or stifle competition, or to obtain a monopoly in electrical communications or to secure unreasonable rates for such communication, or to violate otherwise the laws or public policy of the Philippine Republic;
(2) whenever in his judgment the public interests of the Republic of the Philippines require that such frequencies or wave lengths should be used for other purposes than those of the grantee, either by the Government of the Philippines or by other individuals or corporations licensed by it; and
(3) whenever in his judgment, for any reason, the public interests of the Philippines so require.
Section 7. The stations of the grantee shall be so constructed and operated and the wave lengths so selected as to avoid interference with existing stations and to permit the expansion of the grantee’s services.
Section 8. The grantee shall hold the national, provincial, and municipal governments of the Philippines harmless from all claims, accounts, demands or actions arising out of accidents or injuries, whether to property or to persons, caused by the construction or operation of the stations of the grantee.
Section 9. No private property shall be taken for any purpose by the grantee without proper condemnation proceedings and just compensation paid or tendered therefor, and any authority to take and occupy land contained herein shall not apply to the taking, use, or occupation of any land except such as is required for the actual necessary purposes for which this franchise is granted.
Section 10. The grantee shall keep an account of the gross receipts of its business and shall furnish the Auditor General and the Treasurer of the Philippines with a copy of such account not later than the thirty-first day of January of each year for the preceding year. All the books and accounts of the grantee pertaining to its business shall be subject to the official inspection of the Auditor General or his authorized representatives, and the audit and approval of such accounts shall be final and conclusive evidence as to the amount of said gross receipts, except that the grantee shall have the right to appeal to the courts under the terms and conditions provided in the laws of the Philippines.
Section 11. The grantee, its successors or assigns, shall be subject to the corporation laws of the Philippines now existing or hereafter enacted.
Section 12. In the event of any competing individual, partnership or corporation receiving from the Congress a similar franchise in which there shall be any term or terms more favorable than those herein granted or tending to place the herein grantee at any disadvantage, then such term or terms shall ipso facto become a part of the terms hereof and shall operate equally in favor of the grantee as in the case of said competing individual, partnership or corporation.
Section 13. The grantee shall not lease, transfer, grant the usufruct of, sell or assign this franchise, nor the rights or privileges acquired thereunder to any person, firm, company, corporation or other commercial or legal entity nor merge with any other person, firm, company or corporation organized for the same purpose, without the approval of the Congress of the Philippines first had. Any corporation to which this franchise may be sold, transferred, or assigned, shall be subject to the corporation laws of the Philippines now existing or hereafter enacted, and any person, firm, company, corporation, or other commercial or legal entity to which this franchise is sold, transferred, or assigned shall be subject to all conditions, terms, restrictions and limitations of this franchise as fully and completely and to the same extent as if the franchise had been originally granted to the said person, firm, company, corporation or other commercial or legal entity.
Section 14. (a) The grantee shall be liable to pay the same taxes on its real estate, buildings and personal property, exclusive of the franchise, as other persons or corporations are now or hereafter may be required by law to pay.
(b) The grantee shall further pay to the Treasurer of the Philippines each year, within ten days after the audit and approval of the accounts as prescribed in this Act, one and one-half per centum of all gross receipts from the business transacted under this franchise by the said grantee.
Section 15. This franchise shall not be interpreted to mean as an exclusive grant of the privileges herein provided for.
Section 16. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.
Approved: June 19, 1960.
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