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SMART
Communications Inc. and Pilipino Telephone Corp. are
asking the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC)
to reconsider a decision which stopped them from
imposing an expiry on free text messages, saying the
order was issued without due process.
They
said the expiry of free SMS (short message service)
together with the airtime on all e-load and regular
top-up transactions was approved by the NTC on November
2, 2006, long before the publication of prior
notification to consumers.
“Smart
has paid the publication of these notices to the public
and hence, the holding in abeyance in the implementation
of the free SMS expiration without the benefit of
hearing violates the basic principles of due process and
runs counter to the accepted usual rules and procedures
of the Commission,” said Ivy Plaza-Cortez of Smart’s
legal and regulatory department.
They
also said NTC should not have acted on the
letter-complaint of consumer group TXTPower, which
objected to the expiry of free SMS, because it is not
verified.
TXTPower
filed its letter-complaint on January 10. Five days
later, when the expiry of free SMS should have started,
the NTC stopped the cellular firms from implementing
this.
Globe: NTC order invalid, is price-fixing
move
GLOBE
Telecom hit back at the National Telecommunications
Commission (NTC) for issuing a directive that it deemed
invalid and effectively a price-fixing action.
In its
position paper filed at the NTC Thursday, Globe decried
the NTC’s alleged lack of due process in ordering the
reinstatement of the ‘Unlimitxt’ service without prior
hearing.
The NTC,
acting on the letter-complaint of consumer group
TxtPower, ordered Globe on February 5 to suspend its
‘Unlimited Texting,’ priced at P20 per day, with
optional day-only pricing of P15 and night-only pricing
of P10, and to instead reinstate its ‘Unlimitxt’ at P15
for one day, P25 for two days, and P50 for five days.
Its
previous promotion had been withdrawn from the market,
with the prior approval of the NTC, on
January 31, 2007,
and new rates implemented on February 1, also with the
approval of the Commission.
Globe’s
position paper cited judicial precedents where the
Supreme Court specifically admonished the NTC that it
could not impose new rates on a carrier, even
temporarily, without prior notice and hearing. The
cellular firm said the NTC belatedly realized its
mistake when it issued its Show-Cause Order on February
6.
“The
Commission cannot, as a matter of law, order the
reinstatement of a contract that has ceased to exist.
Nowhere in its charter or in RA 7925 will the Commission
find that it has the god-like power to revive what is
already dead, a legal nullity which affords neither
rights nor demandable obligations,” said Globe.
The NTC,
it added, could not suspend the new text offer service,
as to do so would violate Globe’s contracts with
subscribers who had already subscribed to the new
promotion. Registration for ‘Unlimited Texting’ is
averaging 500,000 a day, said the company. (Lennie
Lectura) |
