From the breakdown of the duopoly to the recent threats of acquisition, President Rodrigo Duterte’s relationship with industry giants PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom has been a tense issue since the beginning of his administration.
Increase the festival in telecommunications, do not get rid of it, a basic crusade through administration. The seizure of multimillion-dollar commercial assets also requires a fair repayment by the owners, a cash that can be used to combat the fatal pandemic of the new coronavirus (COVID-19).
Such an initiative will verify the Philippine Constitution and legislation that recognize the rights of personal enterprises that provide essential public services.
But the president’s diatribe also highlighted the government’s shortcomings in helping growth, adding its inability to loosen the bottlenecks that have plagued telecom operators for years.
“You can’t service without better infrastructure,” said Inquirer Rodolfo Salalima, former head of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
Globe’s former senior legal adviser, Salalima, said telecom operators were willing to spend more but were limited through dozens of local and national government permits that slow down the structure of cellular sites and the installation of fiber optic cables.
“When we say poor service, such as internet policy or speed, the network factor comes into play. Then we move on to the old regulatory permits,” he said.
Mr Duterte factored the proposed order. Currently, building a mobile site for singles can take up to 8 months, much of the time spent obtaining government permits.
The National Telecommunications Commission has still responded to a request for comments to explain the quality of service Duterte expects until December.
However, the DICT said it supported the president’s call to “accelerate the improvement of the entire country.”
It recently passed regulations that allow independent tower corporations to build cellular sites. Last week, the DICT signed a joint agreement with other government agencies to reduce permit processing times from two hundred days to 16 days.
Because most Filipinos own a cell phone, telecommunications infrastructure, such as cell towers, is for communications and is essential in the event of a fitness crisis.
For more than 19 years, PLDT and Globe have invested more than 1.1 billion pesos combined and paid billions of pesos in dividends to shareholders, as Inquirer’s knowledge demonstrated.
About a quarter of investments have materialized over the more than 3 years, indicating an acceleration in the spending of telecom operators to meet the demand for Internet applications.
By 2020, PLDT and Globe were about to spend more than a billion pesos before the pandemic interrupted their deployment plans.
If the government makes the decision to intervene, there are provisions in the Constitution that allow such a takeover, Salalima said.
Under Section 17 of Article XII, which covers periods of national emergency such as a pandemic, the government may “temporarily” take over the operation of public services.
Article 18 stipulates that, in the interests of national welfare or defence, such as war, the State may take over personal enterprises and other enterprises “with the payment of fair compensation”.
The Constitution also stipulates that owners must respect due process.
Salalima also referred to the Philippine Civil Code, which states that “no one could be harmed by its property unless done by the competent authority and for public use and with the payment of fair compensation”.
“We want to be transparent about the concept of expropriation and the use of assets for public purposes. It’s already used for the public,” Salalima said.
This can be confusing and costly, whether it is valued across the inventory market at around 550 billion pesos combined.
A few weeks earlier, his house partners had succeeded in eliminating ABS-CBN Corp.’s franchise offering, causing mass layoffs and crippling the media giant the president had attacked in the past.
PLDT is run by entrepreneur Manuel V. Pangilinan, while Globe is controlled by the Zobel d’Ayala Corp family.
These are the same personalities who hide water traders in the Manila metropolitan area, whose decades-old contracts with the government are rewriting through management to eliminate supposedly onerous conditions.
While LDPT’s Globe and Smart Communications have secured new 25-year franchises over the more than 3 years, the ABS-CBN case is weighing in investors’ minds as a tough demonstration of Malacaang’s strength in the Congress Halls.
Former House member Terry Ridon said lawmakers can “present whatever solution they want,” adding the cancellation or amendment of the PLDT and Globe franchises.
However, it would be better to leave them in the hands of regulators to identify and explain quality of service standards, he said.
Most importantly, he noted that a takeover contrary to the administration’s goal of expanding the festival in telecommunications.
“It’s a contradiction with what you were looking to do in the telecommunications industry if you eliminated Globe and PLDT until December. Instead of having more players, the festival will be lost,” said Ridon, also an organizer of the Infrawatch PH expert group.
Since his presidential campaign, Duterte has said he will use telecom operator challengers to dismantle the so-called PLDT-Globe duopoly.
This commissioning known as DITO Telecommunity also required meeting the minimum internet speed needs, a novelty in the industry. You will face serious consequences if you fail to meet your commitments.
DITO stated that it would raise the bar for quality of service when it was released to the public until March 2021. Subscribers first expected an ad launch as soon as this year.
In addition to a new telecommunications player, defense organization Better Broadband Alliance has suggested that lawmakers pass radical reforms in the data and communications sector, the Open Access Data Transfer Bill.
This will remove barriers, such as a legislative franchise, and allow small players to build and run broadband networks, driving the progression of Internet infrastructure and reducing prices in the Philippines.
The importance of collaboration between the public and personal sectors underlined through the law of the Republic. No. 7925, or the Philippine Public Telecommunications Policy Act, which deregulated the industry when it went through the administration of Ramos in the mid-1990s.
He knew the personal sector as the “engine and effective expansion of the telecommunications industry”.
But he also cited the role of the government in selling a “fair, effective and responsive market to stimulate the expansion and progression of telecommunications amenities and services,” that is, in remote and under-neglected areas.
As the threats of acquisition loom, former DICT Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr. said he doubted the government could offer a better quality of service than existing telecom operators.
“In its franchise, there is a provision that can resume the operation of the telecommunications company in the event of a national emergency, in the public interest and security,” Rio al Inquirer said.
“There is a condition that they maintain their facilities until the end of December. I think telecom operators will take this seriously,” he said.
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