GMA Network files P38-M estafa complaint vs Jalosjos-led TAPE 

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GMA Network accuses its former blocktimer TAPE of failing to remit P37.9 million in ad revenues under a 2023 agreement

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines’ leading broadcast company GMA Network Incorporated has filed a nearly P38-million estafa complaint against the Romeo Jalosjos-led Television and Production Exponents Incorporated (TAPE).

In a disclosure on Thursday, May 22, publicly listed GMA Network said it filed with the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office a “criminal complaint for estafa with abuse of confidence” against officers of TAPE for alleged misappropriation of funds totaling P37.9 million.

Named respondents were: 

• Romeo Jalosjos Jr. (former president and CEO)
• Romeo Jalosjos Sr. (chairman of the board)
• Seth Frederick “Bullet” Jalosjos (Treasurer) 
• Malou Choa-Fagar (former COO and current president and CEO) 
• Michaela Magtoto (former senior vice president for finance)
• Zenaida Buenavista (finance consultant)

“The complaint stems from respondents’ failure to remit advertising revenues collected from clients, which had been contractually assigned to GMA Network under a 2023 Assignment Agreement,” GMA Network said. 

“Despite multiple formal demands, the funds were not transferred to GMA because they were instead used for TAPE’s operational expenses, in violation of the trust arrangement outlined in the agreement,” it added. 

GMA Network said it is “pursuing legal action to hold the responsible officers accountable and to recover the misappropriated amount.”

GMA Network did not provide any other details, but the money is likely the ad revenues that TAPE got for its show Eat Bulaga! or its short-lived noon show Tahanang Pinakamasaya, which was aired on the network’s flagship free TV station, GMA Channel 7, until it was stopped in March 2024.

TAPE was the producer of the Philippines’ longest running noon show, Eat Bulaga!, which started in 1979 and aired for the longest time on Channel 7. But the Jalosjos family had a bitter falling out with the show’s creators — Tito Sotto, Vic Sotto, and Joey de Leon — on how to run the show, which prompted the trio to leave TAPE on May 31, 2023.

They then put up a new noon show on tycoon Manny V. Pangilinan’s TV5, initially named E.A.T., which started on July 1, 2023 on the Kapatid channel.

In January 2024, a Marikina court ordered TAPE to stop using the name Eat Bulaga! after it lost a trademark dispute in December 2023.

TAPE changed the name of the show to Tahanang Pinakamasaya in January 2024, headlined by former (now returning) Manila mayor Isko Moreno and actor Paolo Contis.

TAPE had a block time agreement with GMA to air a noon show on Channel 7 until end of 2024, but it could not get enough advertisers to support their shows. Some of the show’s major advertisers, such as retail giant Puregold Price Club Incorporated, abandoned TAPE and supported the Sotto brothers and De Leon on TV5.

Jalosjos Sr. is a former Zamboanga del Norte congressman who was convicted in 1997 for raping a minor and served time for 12 years.

Members of the Jalosjos dynasty lost badly in the recently concluded midterm elections. 

Dapitan City Mayor Seth Frederick “Bullet” Jalosjos was defeated by Dipolog City Mayor Darel Dexter Uy in the gubernatorial race. In the congressional contests, Cely Jalosjos-Carreon and Cesar Jalosjos lost the races in the 1st and 3rd districts. 

GMA Network’s ad revenues declined by 5% from P17.1 billion in 2023 to P16.2 billion in 2024 due to cutbacks in advertising spending for television and more on new media. Its ad revenues in the first quarter of 2025, however, was boosted by election-related ads for the May 12, 2025 midterm elections. Ad revenues grew 29%, from P2.2 billion in the first quarter of 2024 to P4.3 billion in 2025. – Rappler.com