- The Supreme Court grants the petition of Rappler to livestream the presidential debates
- COMELEC originally gave exclusive rights to select networks to livestream the debates
- With the ruling, other websites can livestream the upcoming debates on April 10 and 24
The Supreme Court (SC) has approved the petition of online news organization Rappler to livestream the presidential debate on its own website.
The SC justices voted 14-0, granting Rappler their petition and ordering the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) to let other websites livestream the third and final presidential debate.
COMELEC originally granted exclusive rights to broadcast network ABS-CBN to livestream the debate scheduled on April 24.
With the SC ruling, Rappler and other websites will also be able to stream live the only vice presidential debate scheduled on April 10.
Earlier, livestreaming rights for the first and second presidential debates held last February 21 and March 20 were granted by COMELEC only to GMA News and TV5; the media organizers of the respective events.
Rappler sued the poll agency; questioning its power to impose and grant broadcast rights of presidential debates. The online news organization argued that giving exclusive rights only to the three networks and their chosen partners was unfair.
“When the MOA grants copyright and fair use rights to the lead networks, the respondent is necessarily imposing a barrier to the free flow of information arising from the debates. This expresses itself in various ways,” Rappler wrote in its petition.
In its ruling, the High Court highlighted the public’s interest to gain information from the debates.
“The political nature of the national debates and the public’s interest in the wide availability of the information for the voters’ education certainly justify allowing the debates to be shown or streamed in other websites for wider dissemination, in accordance with the MOA,” the SC noted in its resolution.
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