Privatization and the ABS-CBN Film Archives Available to Purchase

Established in 1993, the ABC-CBN Film Archives has the largest footprint in the Philippine archive world, having released over two hundred digitally restored titles by 2021. It is owned by a media conglomerate that rose to prominence after 1986, when the postdictatorship government reinstated media oligarchs and privatized the rights to state-produced films. The shutdown of ABS-CBN by the Duterte-controlled Congress in 2020 has destabilized the country's most extensive audiovisual collection. Recounting the rise of the ABS-CBN Film Archives against the backdrop of the Marcos-to-Aquino transition and the fortunes of the oligarchic Lopez family, the chapter revisits the cultural and economic policies of the post-EDSA period, when key state-produced films were privatized. The chapter zooms in on a consequential moment in the privatization of government film holdings: ABS-CBN's 2001 acquisition of the rights to four Experimental Cinema of the Philippines productions, widely regarded as the most significant films ever produced by the state.