Grieving back to society
What is the whole point in the ongoing debate between PLDT-Smart and Globe, the most dominant telecommunications companies in the country?
The two are hugging the gabfest before the National Telecommunications Commission, or the NTC, which is conducting public hearings on the PLDT acquisition of its “competitor,” Digitel-Sun.
In the hearing, as can only be expected of them, the two “biggies” are grieving about their own interest. I am not sure that their interest, either of them, is also the public interest. Hey, they are in business to make money.
Globe is asking the NTC to take away from PLDT and Digitel combined a good part of the most important element in their kind of business: the radio frequency bands.
You see, all governments in the world allocate those bands, measured by the megahertz, or MHz, dividing them into portions for exclusive use (i.e. money-making business) by telecommunications companies, such as those assigned by the NTC to PLDT-Smart, Globe and Digitel-Sun.
In this particular case before the NTC, the two giants are talking about the so-called 3G bands, which allow them to sell to us—on top of mobile telephone services—all those broadband services for the Internet, video calls and mobile television. In short, the thing of the future.
Now, Globe is asking the NTC to take back 22 MHz that were allocated earlier to PLDT-Digitel, arguing that if NTC approves the acquisition, the 3G bands of PLDT-Digitel will be more than four times bigger than the Globe 3G bands.
In other words, many more of us can pass through the PLDT-Digitel broadband highway than through that of Globe, and—this is of course according to Globe—it is dangerous because it is enough to kill competition. Meaning, of course, Globe will not make money.
Well, methinks that if such is the case—and Globe chokes in such an intense market competition that it actually dies—some other groups will surely rush to take its place. There is money to be made, right?
On the other hand, PLDT-Smart is using another approach to the argument on the 3G-band allocation. The group is saying that the NTC must look into the telecom companies’ usage of their allocation. For instance, Smart has some 113 MHz for about 45 million subscribers, while Globe has 90 MHz for only 26 million subscribers. As for the Digitel-Sun, the company has only 42.5 MHz for 14 million subscribers.
In other words, Smart has the most number of subscribers per MHz of band allocation, while Globe has the least. And in the PLDT-Smart group argument before the NTC, they use those figures to show “efficiency.”
In effect, if NTC agrees with Globe, taking back some 22 MHz of band allocation from PLDT-Digitel, in turn giving the same to Globe, the government is rewarding inefficiency.
Which of the two sides has the more valid points on this 3G issue, of course, is up to the NTC.
But to the guys down here in my barangay, the real question is this: Is any of what they are saying, really, giving back to society what they take—for free? Globe claims that the PLDT-Digitel combine would kill competition, implying that without Globe, PLDT-Digitel would eat the public alive, increasing rates at will. Bad for the public.
Sure, and the NTC will just stand by, enjoying the carnage, is that it?
By the way, a long time before Sun came along with its “unlimited” mobile phone package, and before Smart became the leading mobile company in the country, there were only Globe, Piltel and Extelcom. Globe actually dominated the business in those early days, in effect “killing” competition eventually. As things stand now, some other groups came up to fight Globe.
For when the industry big shots argue about the 3G bands, another question arises: How did they get all those frequencies, in the first place?
In other countries, the governments bid out the limited spectrum of radio frequencies for business use by telecom companies, earning billions and billions of dollars for the public coffers.
Here, our government gives them away—for free. Or perhaps for some “consideration” that only heaven knows what. And the government cannot even impose taxes on cell-phone usage.
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National Printing Office, or NPO, in reply to our piece (Breaktime, May 5, 2011) on the corrupt practices in the NPO, said that its prices were not double or triple of those of commercial private printers, as we claimed.
Only last December, the Department of Foreign Affairs procured through the NPO (which subcontracted the order to a private printing company in Caloocan City) so-called FA form no. 51, at P350 per booklet.
In the NPO price list, the same item is listed at only P100 per booklet. Okay, the NPO pricing did not go up by two or three times. It went up by three-and-a-half times.
Also, the city government of Las Piñas recently held a public bidding for the supply of accountable forms. In the past, the city was forced to order such forms through the NPO, but since NPO did not have a working printing plant, it merely subcontracted the Las Piñas order to some favored printing companies.
In the bidding, anyway, Las Piñas used the NPO pricing as “ceiling” for the bidders. What do you know, Bruno, the winning bid was a lot price of only P900,000. And what did the NPO use to charge for the same lot? Let’s see, only P1.8 million. I thought it was precisely what I said earlier—it was “double.”
And this runs away with the top price: the order of Philpost, in which one of our heroes at the NPO actually used to serve the country as a “public servant,” drawing pay from our taxes.
You see, Philpost reported the price for its procurement of “accountable form no. 51” (with security features and all) at P31 per booklet. What was the price of the NPO for the same item? It was a bargain price of P100 per booklet. That is more than triple.
And I can go on and on, but the thing is, despite the Aquino (Part II) administration’s preoccupation with its campaign against corruption, as proclaimed to us by our leader Benigno Simeon (a.k.a. BS), things remain the same at the NPO as they were back in the days of the cute administration of Gloriaetta.
