Covering or seeking cover?: The curious cases of blocktimers in Negros Occidental

Radyo Natin-Hinobaan: Collateral damage?

In Hinobaan town, more than 200 kilometers away from Bacolod City, Ding Taladico’s Radyo Natin had ceased to broadcast since March 1, 2013 after employees of the municipal government padlocked their studio at John Paul Building in the village of Bacuyangan.

The reason: they had been broadcasting without a mayor’s permit since 2010—a claim Taladico said was false as he pointed out that the municipal government even had advocacy programs being aired over the station since October 2012 until the station was shut down.

The programs are:

PROGRAM TITLE	HOST	TIMESLOT	MONTHLY RATE
Banwa Binagbinaga(Think About It, People)	Michael Reliquias aka Mitch Michael, PIO, Hinobaan local government	8:00 to 9:00 a.m., Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays	P5,000
Likaw sa Makahalalit nga Droga (Stay Away from Dangerous Drugs)	Pastor Dan Salcedo for the Municipal Anti-Drug Abuse Council	7:00 to 8:00 a.m. every Sundays	P2,200
Health Is Wealth	Maria Luisa Magbanua, health educator, Rural Health Unit	12:00 to 12:30 p.m.	P2,200

Aside from the programs, the municipal government also sponsored the daily Holy Rosary and time checks during Valentine’s Day, Holy Week, and Christmas. Taladico, however, said that this was supposedly part of the offsetting arrangement after he was loaned P90,000 by the town government in 2009. “But the airtime value is actually more than P90,000 already,” he said.

Taladico also learned through documents gathered from the Municipal Treasurer’s Office that checks payable to “Airwaves Advertising/Segundino E. Taladico” with amounts ranging from P12,000 to P13,000 are being released every month supposedly for Radyo Natin-Hinobaan. When he asked Michael Reliquias, the public information officer of Hinobaan about these checks, he was told that the amount goes to the building rental and the electricity of Radyo Natin-Hinobaan.

What is puzzling for Taladico, however, is that while he has never signed the checks, these were still encashed at the Land Bank of the Philippines in Sipalay City.

The rental, however, is only P5,000 a month while electric consumption is only around P2,000 a month or a total of P7,000 a month. “I don’t know where the rest of the money goes,” Taladico said.

The renewal of the business permit of Radyo Natin-Hinobaan has been pending with the office of Mayor Maria Teresa Bilbao since January, Taladico said as he showed reporters receipts that tend to show that they had been paying the required fees for the mayor’s permit since several years ago.

One of them is Official Receipt No. 4155316 dated February 16, 2012 which showed that Airwaves Advertising, which manages RN-Hinobaan, paid a total of P1,123.75 for its mayor’s permit and surcharges. A separate receipt was also presented by Taladico that showed RadyoNatin’s payment for its police clearance, zoning fees, medical, and other charges for 2012.

Taladico also disputed the claims of Bilbao that RN-Hinobaan has not been issued a permit in all its years of operation since town treasurer Silverio Tuble had in fact issued a certification for RN-Hinobaan dated February 20, 2012 for the payment of its 2012 business permit.

Radyo Natin, which is owned by the Manila Broadcasting Company, is described in its website as the “biggest radio network in the Philippines” composed of 100 radio stations spanning the northern and southern parts of the country and is “able to reach audiences that have never been reached before.”

It is being marketed as a community radio station and is operated by local franchisees who can afford to pay P300,000 for the broadcast equipment. There are “must carry” programs that should be aired by the local station while the programming for the remaining broadcast hours would depend on the local operator.

Among the “must carry” programs are the morning newscasts over dzRH, the flagship station of MBC in Metro Manila, some music and talk programs in the afternoon and the Ang Dating Daan, the religious program of televangelist Eliseo Soriano in the evening. Local stations do not receive any subsidy from the national office and are left on their own to generate funds for their operations.

This is in contrast with the Aksyon Radyo stations that operate on a “Hating Kapatid” scheme, which means that the Aksyon Radyo local station gets half of the income from the national commercials being aired over them while the other half goes to the MBC main office.

Mayor’s orders, closures and death threats

Mayor Bilbao and Reliquias have both been unavailable for comment despite efforts by CMFR to reach them. All the known mobile phone numbers of the two have been inaccessible since the issue broke out while an email sent last month to the address posted on the Hinobaan official website remains unanswered.

Taladico had already filed last month a petition for mandamus with prayer for preliminary injunction before Judge Fernando Elumba of the Kabankalan Regional Trial Court against Bilbao and other officials of the municipal government. The petition seeks to restrain the municipal government from carrying out its closure order on RN-Hinobaan.

He also received mid-April a threat through text message, which Taladico believes is related to the closure of his radio station.

“Hoy, Dino! Gintigan-an ka hitman, ti halong ka guid olwis! 1,2 ka lang tuwad ka na (Hey Dino! I already got a hitman for you. Take care always. You’d keel over in no time),” was the text message received by Taladico last April 13 from mobile phone number 09288742534.The number could not be reached when Taladico and this reporter called it.

“I know that it could be a prank but I would rather err on the side of safety than risk my life,” he added as he explained that he would rather stay in Victorias City in the north where he grew up rather than return to his life as a broadcaster in Hinobaan.

During the March news conference, Taladico would not mention who was behind the closure and even appealed to Mayor Bilbao to reopen his radio station. He admitted recently to CMFR, however, that Reliquias had told him it was Bilbao herself who ordered the closure after Taladico allowed the airing of the blocktime “Una Negros: Pag-Asa Sang Probinsya, Pag-Asa Sang Masa (Negros First: Hope of the Province, Hope of the Masses),” a program sympathetic to the United Negros Alliance led by Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr.

The program, anchored by Victor Pampliega, whose family owns the local port and is one of the opponents of the Bilbaos, started airing last October 2012 from 10:00 to 10:30 a.m. Taladico said he charged only P15,000 a month for the program that will be paid for by the scholars of Governor Marañon.

“(Bilbao) does not want me to accept the program,” he said. “But I am not an ally of Bilbao or of Marañon and I am operating a commercial radio station; I have to earn to keep it running.”

Pampliega minced no words in condemning the closure. In the middle of Taladico’s news conference, Pampliega sat beside him and asked that he be made to speak. He described the political situation in Hinobaan as similar to Martial Law. “Our port operations were not also issued a permit by the town but since we are fighting back they cannot close it,” he said.

Taladico said the political realignment in the province has affected his radio station as mayors now have to choose sides in the gubernatorial race after the United Negros Alliance founded by Marcos crony and businessman Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr. broke up.

Once considered the political juggernaut in the island, UNA was founded with Cojuangco’s Nationalist People’s Coalition at its core. During its first political foray in 2001, UNA-backed candidates for mayor won in almost all of the 32 towns and cities of Negros Occidental and in most towns and cities in Oriental Negros while its candidates for congressmen won in five of seven political districts in Negros Occidental.

It split, however, after Marañon reneged on his pledge to Cojuangco not to run for re-election as governor. Cojuangco has endorsed Vice-Governor Genaro Alvarez, Jr.

Bilbao is one of the supporters of Alvarez.

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