ABS Gets Even With DITO: The Lopezes and Dennis Uy Now Share the Same Lifeline—Debt, Supplier Credit, and Investor Patience

 

ABS-CBN and DITO once stood on opposite sides of the Philippine corporate fate. Now, both are being kept aloft by creditors, suppliers, and hope.

There is a certain symmetry in corporate misfortune. In 2020, ABS-CBN, the Lopez family’s media empire, lost the congressional franchise that had long underpinned its free-to-air broadcasting business after a House committee voted 70-11 to deny its bid for renewal. Around the same era, DITO Telecommunity, backed by Dennis Uy’s Udenna group and China Telecom, was being cast as the disruptive third telco that would break the Globe-PLDT duopoly and bring competition to the Philippine connectivity market. 

Six years later, the tables have not so much turned as collapsed inward. ABS-CBN is no longer the mighty broadcaster whose franchise became a national political drama. DITO is no longer merely the insurgent challenger promising cheaper data and faster speeds. Both have become variations of the same Philippine corporate specimen: the strategic asset that cannot yet pay for itself.

The irony is rich. DITO’s rise once required the help of the very ecosystem surrounding ABS-CBN. In 2019, before DITO’s commercial launch, the company announced a partnership with SkyCable, the Lopez-linked cable and broadband business, to use unused fiber-optic cables in Metro Manila for its network rollout. It was a practical arrangement, not a sentimental one. DITO needed infrastructure; SkyCable had some. But viewed from 2026, it reads like an early scene in a longer drama: one wounded empire lending wires to a challenger that would later discover that wires are the easy part. Solvency is harder. 

For the Lopezes, the pain has been slow and public. ABS-CBN still has a brand, stars, production capabilities, overseas audiences, and digital distribution channels. It has partnerships with local and international platforms, including Zoe, TV5, Cignal, GMA, AllTV2, Netflix, Viu, and Amazon Prime. It still sells content, stages events, and reaches viewers through cable, streaming, and social media. But the company’s first-quarter 2026 results show how far the old machine has been diminished. Consolidated revenue fell to ₱3.33bn, down 21% from a year earlier, while the group posted a ₱813m net loss. EBITDA was negative ₱127m, and total equity had slipped to negative ₱66m by March 31st, 2026. 

For Dennis Uy’s DITO, the pain is newer, larger, and more financial than cultural. Its network is real. Its subscribers are real. Its revenue is growing. DITO CME reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of ₱5.81bn, up from ₱4.69bn a year earlier, helped by mobile, fixed wireless, enterprise, and carrier growth. EBITDA improved to ₱830m, up sharply year on year. Yet below the operating line lies the abyss: DITO reported a ₱17.72bn net loss in Q1 2026, swollen by about ₱9.74bn in foreign-exchange losses and ₱5.01bn in interest expense. 

Thus, the revenge. ABS-CBN, once punished by the loss of a franchise, can now look across the corporate battlefield and see that DITO has acquired a different kind of franchise problem: not the absence of permission, but the burden of financing what permission allowed it to build. DITO won the right to compete. It built towers, sold SIMs, and put a third signal into the market. But it also built a balance sheet that now looks like a telecommunications network suspended over a ravine.

As of March 31st, 2026, DITO CME had ₱203.43bn in assets and ₱321.16bn in liabilities. Its capital deficiency had widened to ₱117.73bn, from ₱100.01bn at the end of 2025. Current liabilities were ₱90.71bn, against current assets of only ₱7.26bn, leaving a liquidity gap of roughly ₱83.45bn. This is not a balance sheet with leverage. It is a leverage with a business attached. 

ABS-CBN’s version is smaller but no less revealing. As of March 31st, 2026, its assets were ₱33.96bn, and its liabilities were ₱34.02bn. Current liabilities exceeded current assets by about ₱13.5bn. Its debt was about ₱11.8bn, and key bank loans had to be extended: the ₱5bn BPI loan to May 31st 2026 and the ₱4.75bn UnionBank loan to June 30th 2026. The company’s filings describe material uncertainty over its ability to continue as a going concern, citing losses, refinancing needs, and liquidity pressure. 

The two companies are therefore being carried in similar ways. ABS-CBN is carried by the patience of banks, the willingness of partners to distribute its content, the endurance of its brand, and the hope that cost controls and monetization can rebuild equity. DITO is carried by bank debt, supplier credit, affiliate advances, shareholder support, and the hope that scale will eventually turn a cash-burning network into a cash-generating utility.

DITO’s scaffold is especially visible. Loans payable stood at about ₱213.23bn net, with bank loans of about ₱229.25bn before debt-issuance costs. Accounts payable and other current liabilities totaled ₱86.43bn, including ₱34.61bn in accrued project costs and ₱21.90bn in advances from affiliates. Summit Telco had advanced about ₱10.4bn under a subscription framework that could involve up to 9bn primary common shares. Suppliers, affiliates, and investors are not peripheral to DITO’s story. They are the story.

ABS-CBN’s scaffold is more reputational than infrastructural. It no longer owns the old broadcast economics. Its Content Production and Distribution segment generated ₱2.76bn in revenue in Q1 2026, down 13%, while advertising revenue fell 31% to ₱1.23bn. Cable and broadband revenue fell 46% to ₱571m, reflecting the continued decline of Sky Cable’s subscriber base. Cost controls helped reduce expenses, but not enough to restore profitability. The group remains a content company trying to earn enough without the distribution privilege that once made everything easier.

There is a temptation to see this as poetic justice. The Lopez empire was cut down by politics; Dennis Uy’s telco was elevated by policy and regulatory ambition. DITO was born as the state-blessed challenger, the third player meant to discipline incumbents. ABS-CBN became the cautionary tale of what happens when a media company loses access to the state’s gate. Yet the market has a colder sense of humor than politics. It does not care who was favored, who was punished, or who was meant to represent the future. It asks only whether cash comes in faster than obligations fall due. 

By that measure, neither side has much to boast about. ABS-CBN has a famous name but negative equity. DITO has a national network but a capital deficiency larger than the entire market value of many listed companies. ABS-CBN must convince lenders that a post-franchise media business can survive on content, events, licensing, and streaming. DITO must convince lenders, suppliers, and investors that a third telco can grow into its debt before its debt grows around it.

The difference is scale. ABS-CBN is trying to preserve a shrunken business. DITO is trying to justify a vast one. ABS-CBN’s losses erode a thin cushion. DITO’s losses deepen a crater. ABS-CBN’s problem is that its old economics have disappeared. DITO’s problem is that its new economics have not yet arrived.

In this sense, the Lopezes have not so much got even with Dennis Uy as found him in the same waiting room. One arrived after a political amputation; the other after a debt-funded expansion. Both now depend on the same corporate medicine: extensions, refinancing, payables management, asset sales, new money, and faith.

For investors, the lesson is unsentimental. A household name is not a margin of safety. Neither is a national network. ABS-CBN and DITO are both strategic assets, but strategic assets can still have bad balance sheets. The former has viewers but not enough profit. The latter has subscribers but too much debt. Both are alive because others allow them to be.

That may be the most Philippine ending imaginable. Two corporate groups, once symbols of opposite fortunes, are now joined by a shared dependence on patience. The Lopezes lost their franchise. Dennis Uy won his network. The creditors, as usual, may win either way.

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Disclaimer: This is for informational purposes and is not investment advice. Figures are taken from company disclosures and exchange data; valuation ratios include the author’s calculations based on cited inputs.