Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation (IBC)

The Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation is a state-owned broadcaster in the Philippines, wholly owned by the government. It was incorporated as Continental Broadcasting Corporation in May 1970, renamed IBC-13 in September 1974, and its studios are at Broadcast City, Capitol Hills, Diliman, Quezon City.

Its facilities were sequestered on 1 March 1986 by order of the Minister of National Defense, at the request of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, alongside Radio Philippines Network and Banahaw Broadcasting Corporation. Executive Order No. 11 of April 1986 created a Board of Administrators to manage the stations under PCGG supervision, and under a compromise agreement of 3 November 1990 Roberto S. Benedicto surrendered and ceded the network to the Republic of the Philippines. Congress approved a 25-year franchise in July 2000.

The corporation’s stated primary purpose is to operate media of mass communication on a commercial or sustaining basis, a commercial mandate rather than a public service one, which distinguishes it from both PTV and the Presidential Broadcast Service.

Media assets

Television: IBC-13 Manila (DZTV-TV), broadcasting on VHF channel 13 with digital subchannels carrying Congress TV and a DWAN 1206 video feed.

Radio: DWAN 1206 AM, established as DWWA in 1973 and relaunched in June 2024 after a period of dormancy, with a programming lineup of news, talk shows, music and podcasts.

Ownership and governance

IBC is a government-owned and controlled corporation, wholly owned by the Philippine government and operating under the control and supervision of the Presidential Communications Office.

Governance runs through the GOCC framework. Appointive directors are appointed by the President from shortlists prepared by the Governance Commission for GOCCs under Republic Act No. 10149, using a fit-and-proper process, and normally serve one-year terms; the CEO is elected by the Board from among its members. The structure provides a formal nomination and corporate-governance process but no arm’s-length representation independent of the state: the shortlist is produced by a government commission, the President makes the appointments, and the corporation is wholly government-owned and PCO-supervised.

As at 31 December 2024 the Board comprised Noel M. Malaya as Chairman, Jose C. Policarpio Jr. as President and CEO, and members Jennifer G. Jurado, Catherina D. Vilar, Alexis A. Suarez, Miguel G. Damaso and Roberto R. Ferrer.

The corporation employed 239 personnel at end-2024, of whom 124 were regular staff. The remainder comprised 20 non-regular personnel and 95 engaged as talents, retainers or on contract of service, roughly 40% of the complement outside permanent positions.

Privatisation

Privatisation remains the government’s declared intention and remains incomplete, as it has been under successive administrations since the 1990s.

The 2024 audit records that IBC’s Privatisation Committee, comprising the PCO, the Governance Commission for GOCCs and IBC itself, was completing the terms of reference and guidelines, and that privatisation was deferred because the franchise renewal was pending. That obstacle was removed when Republic Act No. 12311 was signed in October 2025.

Management identifies the settlement of remaining labour liabilities and completion of an asset valuation as the principal immediate conditions for sale. At a Senate budget hearing in October 2025 the President and CEO said a privatisation plan had been submitted to a technical working group comprising the DBM, the GCG, the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel, the Department of Finance, the PCO and IBC. He stated that liabilities had been brought down from roughly PHP 1.5 billion to around PHP 500 million, that PHP 428 million remained owed in retirement benefits to 167 employees under a National Labor Relations Commission order, and that a company carrying such liabilities could not be sold. That PHP 428 million was sought as an augmentation to the 2026 budget, separate from the PHP 122 million enacted subsidy.

Audited figures give the same trajectory: total liabilities fell from PHP 1.114 billion at end-2023 to PHP 696.99 million at end-2024, and capital deficiency narrowed from PHP 603.40 million to PHP 99.63 million.

The franchise itself bears on the eventual ownership structure. Republic Act No. 12311 requires IBC to offer at least 30% of its outstanding capital stock to Filipino citizens within five years, or to adopt another method of public participation where such an offering is not applicable. SMM will monitor how that provision interacts with the privatisation process.

Source of funding and budget

IBC is predominantly state-funded, and the latest audited evidence puts the matter beyond doubt.

The 2024 Annual Audit Report records national government subsidy of PHP 741,035,000 against service and business income of PHP 29,988,692. For 2023 the corresponding figures were PHP 187,899,000 in subsidy against PHP 32,226,950 in revenue. Commercial income has been broadly flat and represents a small fraction of the corporation’s financing.

The 2026 General Appropriations Act provides a further PHP 122 million, the smallest allocation among the PCO’s broadcast agencies, against PHP 484.3 million for the Bureau of Broadcast Services, PHP 247.1 million for the Presidential Broadcast Staff–RTVM and PHP 136.7 million for PTV-4. IBC had been excluded from the 2024 Act, prompting an appeal to Congress in August 2023; the Budget Department linked the exclusion to planned privatisation.

The Commission on Audit issued a qualified opinion on the 2024 statements, citing unestablished balances for property, plant and equipment, receivables, cash and taxes withheld at source, including receivables of PHP 330.113 million lacking subsidiary ledgers or supporting documents. Those qualifications concern the reliability of specific account balances rather than the reported relationship between subsidy and operating revenue. Of 39 recommendations in the previous year’s report, 16 were implemented and 23 were not.

Editorial independence

IBC’s own reporting provides the clearest evidence for this condition. Its 2025 Annual Report states that the corporation’s operations fully supported the government, and records that 376 of a possible 522 programming hours per month, or 67.33%, were reserved for government broadcast use. Its station-produced portfolio includes Bagong Pilipinas: PBBM Lingkod ng Bayan, devoted to the President’s projects and activities, and Cabinet at Work, alongside general news, cultural, educational and entertainment programming and substantial blocktime content from third parties.

Institutional direction rests with the executive. The PCO exercises control and supervision, appointment influence runs through the presidential appointment of directors, and SMM identified no independent regulatory or oversight body monitoring IBC’s editorial performance or securing its impartiality.

Republic Act No. 12311 does contain formal content safeguards that should be recorded. It imposes public-service obligations, requires sound and balanced programming, provides for public participation and information, and includes a self-regulation provision barring the grantee from requiring prior censorship of material to be broadcast, subject to the exceptions the law states. These are countervailing provisions. They do not create an independent governance structure, and they do not protect IBC’s editorial decision-making from its government owner or its supervising executive agency.

AI and digital policy

IBC’s stated priorities following the franchise renewal include modernising the network and expanding digital coverage, and it operates digital subchannels including Congress TV, carried in collaboration with the House of Representatives.

A government-wide DICT–CSC framework for the ethical and responsible development, deployment and use of artificial intelligence in government was issued in June 2026. SMM identified no IBC-specific implementation policy and no documented newsroom deployment of generative AI, synthetic media or automated production, and no disclosure practice comparable to the labelled AI presenters introduced by the Presidential Broadcast Service in September 2025.

Classification rationale

IBC remains classified State-Controlled (SC), meeting all three conditions of the State Media Matrix.

It is predominantly state-funded, on unusually clear audited evidence. The 2024 accounts record PHP 741.04 million in national government subsidy against PHP 29.99 million in service and business income, with the 2023 figures showing the same pattern at a lower level. The 2026 appropriation provides a further PHP 122 million, and a PHP 428 million augmentation was sought to discharge labour liabilities. Commercial income has not approached displacing state financing.

It is state-owned and state-governed. IBC is wholly owned by the Philippine government and operates under the control and supervision of the Presidential Communications Office. Board appointments remain ultimately controlled by the state: directors are appointed by the President from GCG shortlists and serve one-year terms, while the CEO is elected by the state-appointed Board.

Its editorial agenda is subject to state control, and the corporation says so itself. Its 2025 Annual Report states that operations fully supported the government and that 67.33% of monthly airtime was reserved for government broadcast use, and its originated programming includes formats devoted to the President and the Cabinet. The franchise’s balanced-programming and self-regulation provisions constitute formal countervailing evidence, but they do not create an independent mechanism capable of insulating editorial priorities from the government owner.

IBC occupies an unusual position within the SMM universe: a state-owned broadcaster whose government is actively seeking to stop owning it, with a commercial rather than public-service corporate purpose, a single television station and a single radio station on air, and two-thirds of its airtime reserved for government use. Should privatisation complete, IBC would leave the state media category altogether. Until it does, the classification follows from ownership, financing and editorial practice rather than from the intention to change them.

August 2026