Telco issue: Is PCC competing with DICT and NTC?

Last week, I read a report that the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is collaborating with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) for a draft executive order that will require local government units (LGUs) to issue cellsite permit to mobile operators within seven days. This was revealed by my good friend, DICT Secretary Rodolfo Salalima during the Philippines Telecom Summit at the PICC Tent. While this is too good to be true, it has not yet been carried!

As that report pointed out, “Local telcos Globe Telecom and Smart Communications have argued that their deployment of cellsites around the country has been hampered by the 25 permits that they need to obtain from the LGUs over a long period of time, which normally extends up to 68 days. It takes another two to three months to actually construct the towers, prolonging the implementation even further, they said.” Again, the report also mentions that the Philippines only have some 7,000 cellsites, while Vietnam has 40,000 cellsite towers, which translate to higher and faster Internet speeds.

In my book, the LGUs should not “hostage” the telcos with their self-made bureaucracy so that they can also make money from the construction of cellsites. According to Salalima, the EO that will be submitted to Pres. Rodrigo Duterte for signing, gives two more days to the local chief executive to decide whether to approve or deny a permit, but if after that no decision has been made, the permit should be deemed approved. Hopefully Pres. Duterte can get this approved pronto!

Meanwhile in a related issue, the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) reported last April, that “PLDT and Globe have adamantly resisted scrutiny of the telco deal and refused to disclose the terms of the co-use of the 700 MHz subject of the transaction.” Apparently this is in reference to the buyout of the San Miguel Telco and its 700Mhz spectrum, which has now been used and international studies and open surveys clearly show the improvements in Internet speeds have doubled since that acquisition.

What is strange here is that PCC is still questioning this deal despite its obvious advances in our Internet speeds and the approval by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). For those who admit that they are not techies, the high-quality 700 MHz spectrum is able to travel longer distances, require few cell towers, and penetrate through building walls, elevators, and even underground parking lots and this is why PLDT and Globe went out of their way to get this spectrum. So it was a great idea!

So what is the PCC trying to do here… take over the functions of the NTC or the DICT? If we have better Internet speeds and for as long as cellphone subscribers are satisfied with the performance of our telcos, the PCC should no longer interfere with this done deal. In my book, the PCC is trying to muscle in on the other agencies regulating the telcos and this kind of bureaucracy isn’t healthy for us cellphone subscribers many of whom are ordinary folks using cellphones even in far flung areas!

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Last May 7 was the first anniversary of the untimely death of a certain Gilbert Delima who was gunned down in what pundits say was an election related killing in Santa Fe, Bantayan Island. The Freeman’s Sunday came up with a report that blared, “Mother expresses disappointment over progress of case vs. suspects.” Mrs. Josefina Delima apparently is at a loss that Justice has been denied her son one year after he was killed.

Her son, Gilbert was killed in front of the house of Sta. Fe Mayor Jose Esgana three days before the May 10 elections last year. Gilbert had an altercation with Paolo Esgana, the son of Mayor Esgana and Escarlan his brother-in-law and when he left the Mayor’s house, he was gunned down just a few meters from the house. I also gathered that Gilbert’s dead body was dragged into the house of Mayor Esgana instead of the hospital.

The issue on hand is… why did Cebu Provincial Prosecutor Pepita Jane Petralba sign and approved the resolution signed by Prosecutor III Rustom Presas  Jr. who indicted Pablo Paul Escarlan for the crime of homicide, while dropping the complaint against Joanes Paulo Esgana as an accomplice for the crime of murder for lack of probable cause? Gilbert’s mother decried this injustice for this was clearly a crime of murder, not homicide!

Forgive me for thinking this way, but I do have a hunch that this is what happens when you use your political connections to get off the hook for a possible  crime of murder and reduce it to homicide. So am I seeing the political connections with the Liberal Party (LP) at work here? What does the NBI think of what the Provincial Prosecutor did in downgrading this case of murder as the NBI had filed it? For me, this is not just a case of simple murder, it also a case of Obstruction of Justice by the prosecutor!

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