Aleader of the House of Representatives asked Globe Telecom Inc. and Smart Communications Inc. to identify which local government units (LGUs) have supposedly delayed the issuance of their permits to build more cellsite towers and other telecommunications infrastructure.
Deputy Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte issued the call on Sunday while also asking the telecommunications companies (telcos) to stop blaming all LGUs for their failure to upgrade services, more so now when President Duterte and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) have assured them there would no longer be any red tape in the processing of applications for the rollout of their cellsite towers.
“Their [telcos] epic failure for years now in bringing up their services to world-class standards have been magnified at this time of the coronavirus pandemic when superior Internet connectivity would have greatly aided national efforts to switch right away to digital technology and online transactions, in practice of physical distancing to avoid Covid-19 infection,” Villafuerte said.
Villafuerte added that in 2017, he already called on these “telco giants” to provide better services “and filed House Bill [HB] 1299 seeking to give consumers a venue to air their complaints against these errant firms.”
He said he has filed a proposal requiring the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to come up with a comprehensive and efficient system for subscribers to report their complaints of substandard services from their respective telecommunication providers.
“I challenge these telcos to submit their applications for tower rollouts in CamSur because I guarantee them that Governor [Miguel Luis] Villafuerte will process their permits in an expeditious manner,” said Villafuerte, referring to his son, the incumbent provincial governor.
EODB
Moreover, Villafuerte questioned why telcos continue to gripe about red tape when Republic Act 11032, or the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) Law of 2018, had amended the Anti-Red Tape Act “precisely to, among others, provide the public and businesses with an effective mechanism to ensure prompt action on, or resolution of, their government transactions.”
RA 11032, which Villafuerte had coauthored, slaps penalties on local officials for their respective LGU’s failure to act on applications for permits or other official transactions within the specified time for processing such documents.
Globe President and CEO Ernest L. Cu pointed out in a meeting that LGUs require around 25 permits to 29 permits that took almost eight months to process before the company could build the cellsite towers required to deliver Internet service in unserved communities.
Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said during the same meeting that the DILG and other government agencies have already issued a Joint Memorandum Circular (JMC) that would ensure the speedy approval of all licenses, permits and clearances for the establishment of “shared passive telecom tower infrastructure.”a