A PETITION has been filed before the Supreme Court (SC) seeking to declare as invalid the “co-use agreement” between telecommunications giants PLDT Inc./Smart Communications Inc. and Globe Telecoms covering the 700 megahertz (MHz) broadcast frequency and several sets of telecom frequencies previously awarded to San Miguel Corp.’s telecommunications unit Liberty Broadcasting Network now named Tori Spectrum Telecom Inc. and later to Bell Telecommunications Inc., a subsidiary of Vega Telecommunications Inc.
In a 48-page petition for mandamus, lawyers Joseph Lemuel Baligod Baquiran and Ferdinand Tecson also asked the High Court to order the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to revoke the agreement and to make the frequencies available to other players.
The petitioners insisted the assignment of the frequencies to the two telco giants was invalid and unconstitutional.
They also sought the issuance of temporary restraining order (TRO) to enjoin and restrain PLDT/Smart and Globe from further using the 700MHz broadcast frequency and the following telecom frequencies: 2540-2545 MHz, 2580-2595 MHz, 2535-2540 and 2565-2580 MHz.
The petitioners also asked the SC to prohibit the NTC from bidding out or awarding some frequencies ostensibly returned by the two-telecom giants “in consideration of the approval of the co-use agreement to any entity until the SC resolves with finality the constitutional and legal issues raised by the petitioners in this case.”
PLDT/Smart and Globe acquired last year the said broadcast and telecom frequencies after purchasing, on a 50-50 basis, all the issued and outstanding shares of stock of SMC’s Vega Telecom for about P70 billion.
The petitioners argued the assignment of the controversial 700 MHz frequency to the PLDT/Globe duopoly by the NTC was illegal and unconstitutional because under the legislative franchise given to Liberty Broadcasting Network Inc. in 2012, the frequency was intended for television broadcasting and not for telecommunications.
“Despite that respondent Liberty was no longer engaged in broadcasting business and despite the underutilization or, worse, non-utilization at all of the conditionally assigned said frequencies within the prescribed period, respondent Liberty continued to illegally hoard the said 700 MHz broadcast frequency,” they lamented.
“Worse, respondent NTC unlawfully neglected to recall the said frequencies conditionally and illegally assigned to respondent Liberty,” the petitioners said.