When World War II was over, KZFM was the first radio station to return on the air. It reopened in May 1945 and was operated by the US Army Office of War Information. After President Harry Truman proclaimed that “the United States of America withdraws and surrenders all rights of possession, supervision, jurisdiction, control, or sovereignty now existing and exercised by the United States of America in and over the territory and [the] people of the Philippines” on July 4, 1946, the US government turned it over to the Philippine government in September 11, 1946. KZFM, renamed DZFM in 1947, became the nucleus of the Philippine Broadcasting System.
As a colony of the United States, the first two call letters “KZ” was used until 1947 when Francisco “Koko” Trinidad, regarded by broadcasters and broadcast faculty and students as the father of Philippine broadcasting, represented the country in a conference of the International Telecommunications Union in Atlantic City in the United States.
In that conference, Trinidad insisted the change of the first two call letters “KZ” to “RP” for Republic of the Philippines. He wanted to inform the world about the one-year-old republic in the South East Asia. However, the union rejected the first two call letters because of the trouble it would cause in securing the approval of the international broadcasting community. And because Germany used her radio stations to advance the ideologies of Nazis, the union punished her by depriving her rights to use broadcast airwaves. The union then gave her rights to use the call letter D for Deutscheland, the German name of Germany, to the Republic of the Philippines.
Subsequently, the first two call letters “KZ” was replaced by “DZ” for Manila, “DW” for Luzon, “DY” for the Visayas, and “DX” for Mindanao in 1947. Later, radio stations in Luzon including Manila were required to change their first two call letters from “DW” to “DZ”.
Also in 1947, the Philippine Broadcasting System under Trinidad introduced developmental communication in radio broadcasting. Agricultural programs were broadcast on some radio stations in the country and in the region.
PHILIPPINE TELEVISION
October 23, 1953 marked the first official television broadcast in the Philippines. But before that date, academic experiments with the new electronic medium had been conducted by the University of Santo Tomas in Manila when Jose Nicolas, an engineering student, demonstrated a homemade receiver in 1950, and by the Far East Asia Technological Institute when it opened an experimental television station in 1952.
Even before these academic experiments, James Lindenberg, an American engineer and the father of Philippine television, saw the potential of television in the country. On June 13, 1946, armed with surplus equipment and imported spare parts, Lindenberg assembled transmitters and established the Bolinao Electronics Corporation (BEC), named after Bolinao, Pangasinan, the hometown of his wife.
In 1949, Lindenberg, who wanted to establish a commercial television station, applied for a license in the Congress. A year later, on June 14, 1950, his request was granted.
“We were told to go ahead. It was much simpler in those days than it is now. Mr. Canon, who was [the] head of the Radio Control Division, told us to go ahead,” Lindenberg recalled.
The scarcity of raw materials and the strict importation controls imposed in 1948 compelled Lindenberg to venture into radio broadcasting instead.
“The import control people and the Central Bank were quite adamantly opposed to it on the grounds that the dollars spent on television would be better spent on other items,” Lindenberg said.
The efforts of Lindenberg were not wasted after all. His dream gradually became a reality when Judge Antonio Quirino, the brother of President Elpidio Quirino entered the picture. Judge Quirino tried to get a license to set up television stations, but he was unable to obtain one for political reasons. The Congress probably thought that he would use such stations for campaigning for his brother who was then running for a second term in the 1953 Presidential Election.
Denied by the Congress, the only alternative for Judge Quirino was to buy stocks from an existing corporation. In 1952, he bought 70 percent of BEC, controlling the stock and acquiring the franchise indirectly. He changed the corporate name of the television station from BEC to ABS for Alto Broadcasting System after the names of its new owners, Aleli and Antonio. Lindenberg, still part owner, served as the general manager.
After closing the deal, things did not progress smoothly. Like Lindenberg, Judge Quirino also faced numerous obstacles.
“The Central Bank did not grant me [a] dollar credit because they said [that] the venture was too risky. Obviously, it was a tactic to delay the installation of the station so that my brother could not use it during the election campaign [sic].”
Judge Quirino then asked the help of Marvin Gray whose family is a friend of Gen David Sarnoff, the president of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Through Gray, Judge Quirino was able to appeal the cause of ABS and obtain assistance from RCA.
