Free market

If I were to believe my reliable sources, then this supposed interest of the Chinese telecommunications industry to enter the Philippine market is more imagined than real.

If the Chinese were to enter our telecom market based on sheer business indicators, any investments in our telecom industry would be suicidal. These state-owned Chinese telcos already are doing well in their own shores after all. Why would they risk their money and reputation for a business venture that has the potential of making them fall flat on their faces, so to speak.

And why would a third telco player fail? According to my sources, these Chinese telcos are worried that given the size of the required investment, the size of the market (China has a population of 1.4 billion versus our 105 million), and the quality of the radio frequencies that will be given to them, there is no way that such a business venture will succeed. They will have to rely on a strong Filipino partner to do most of the work, marketing wise, because the local partner is presumed to know the Philippine market more, but that of course is a disputable presumption.

Can the Chinese rely on the Philippine government to create the market for them?

Our government has made countless public announcements and press releases about an impending third player entry into the Philippine telecoms market. The deadlines have come and gone and there is still no clear frontrunner in sight. This only goes to show how significant the industry’s entry barriers are, and how rolling out is easier said than done.

 In fact, Information and Communications Technology OIC Eliseo Rio has said that the third major player could not be named during President Duterte’s State of the Nation Address in July as earlier announced. Instead, the announcement will be made before the end of the year.

Then of course there are parties opposing our government’s move to favor the China. Recently, Sen. Leila de Lima called for a Senate investigation into the ongoing selection process, as she expressed serious concern over the current administration’s apparent partiality to pick a telecoms firm from China as the country’s third telecommunications carrier.

Just recently, the government warned that it would reclaim unused radio frequency spectrum from non-operating players and just give it to a third or fourth player. But with a new entrant nowhere in sight or unable to prove itself thus far, all the unreasonable bending-over- backwards by the government may be all for naught.

 There may be two major players or a duopoly in the Philippine telecom market, but not in the sense that they collude on prices or output to the detriment of Filipino consumers. The intense competition between these two players is real. There had been attempts in the past by third players to enter the market, but competition is cutthroat and the entry barriers are really high. But this two player system exists only in cellular market. As far as broadband internet services are concerned, there are already a lot of players who promise to offer higher speed data at lower prices like Converge and Now Corp. with its fiber-in-the-air service.

Businesses require a level playing field to thrive and improve efficiencies. Forcing a third major telco to come in and operate by way of giving concessions and freebies when the market cannot sustain it may be a wrong move and this is something that our government should think about.

Diplomatic skills

Following the allegedly illegal rescue of abused overseas Filipino workers in Kuwait by Philippine Embassy personnel in supposed violation of the Vienna Convention and the posting of the videos of such rescue that led to the expulsion of our ambassador to Kuwait and the arrests of Filipinos involved in the rescue mission, everybody thought that the damage done on our relations with the Kuwait government was irreparable.

After all, the incident happened while the Philippines and Kuwait were in the middle of negotiations over a memorandum of understanding  following a ban imposed by President Duterte on the deployment of Filipino workers to Kuwait resulting from the shocking discovery of Joanna Demafelis’ body in a freezer.

But then, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III announced that the proposed MOU with Kuwait for better treatment of Filipino migrant workers has already been finalized inspite of the diplomatic fiasco resulting from the rescue operations.

All that was needed was a non-diplomat to undo the damage that had been wrought upon warm relations between Kuwait and the Philippines.

President Duterte himself handpicked Bello to pick up the pieces and mend fences with a rich manpower market that draws both semi-skilled and highly skilled OFWs.

It took the Bello-led team two days to gain significant concessions from the Kuwait government and convince Kuwait officials to sign the MOU.

We just cannot afford to lose the Kuwait market, which hires around 262,000 Filipinos, 170,000 of who are household service workers. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas records show that as of February 2018, remittances from Kuwait amounted to P5.5 billion. In 2017, a total of P42 billion was remitted from the Gulf state.

As a result, the President has partly lifted the deployment ban to allow skilled and semi-skilled workers to seek jobs in Kuwait, which is goods news for some 5,000 Kuwait-bound OFWs who had been waiting for week.

Kuwait has released the four Philippine Embassy personnel who were earlier arrested for their role in the controversial rescue operation and is footing the plane fare of some 500 OFWs languishing in shelter houses who will be repatriated.

Bello stressed that this time, our government will be stricter in terms of deployment and will make sure that OFWs are properly trained.

Justice delayed, justice denied

Just when everyone thought that nothing will come out of it, there are reports that both the investigating and the reviewing prosecutors have finally signed the resolution for the indictment of one of the giants in the Asian gambling business.

This casino mogul, whose gaming empire stretches from Macau to Reno, is said to have duped his business partners who are now filing cases one after the other for funds that are unaccounted for.

Unfortunately, this resolution has reportedly been stayed. There are now rumors, with basis or none at all, that this mogul’s billions of cash stashed away somewhere are being dangled to ensure victory.

Just recently, one of those who filed a case in court again him asked the local judge to inhibit from the two estafa cases filed against him after a copy of the unreleased court resolutions were posted on social media.

According to the company’s motion for inhibition, copies of the supposed resolutions have been leaked even before the resolutions could be officially released.

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