PLDT to formalize turnover of CURE frequencies at no cost

PLDT Inc. is formalizing its position not to seek payment for the spectrum frequencies it returned to the government and the investment it made in CURE, chairman and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan said Tuesday.

The government intends to reassign the spectrum frequencies to the third telco player that will be announced next May.

PLDT is now preparing a letter for the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), saying it is no longer expecting compensation for the investment it made in Connectivity Unlimited Resources Enterprises (CURE)—to which the spectrum frequencies were assigned.

“Formally, we have to send them a letter, which we will,” Pangilinan told reporters on the sidelines of the US-Philippines Society Investment Forum in Makati City.

“We have already taken a public position that we will waive all rights and benefits to the frequencies of CURE, which have been turned over to NTC,” he said.

This development comes weeks after Department of Information and Communications Technology officer-in-charge Eliseo Rio said that PLDT has agreed to return the CURE frequencies, at “absolutely no cost.”

Asked when PLDT will actually send its letter to NTC, Pangilinan noted it is still in the works.

“There’s a process internally, dictated by our governance ... but we will. Don't worry, it’s the public position of PLDT,” he said.

The government compelled PLDT to divest from CURE and surrender its frequencies in exchange for the NTC’s approval of its merger with Digitel Telecommunications Philippines Inc., the then owner of Sun Cellular brand.

At that time CURE was assigned with 10 megahertz of the 55 megahertz 3G frequency band.

While PLDT has waived its rights to a “cost recovery” provision in agreeing to surrender the spectrum frequencies assigned to CURE, earlier agreements with the government indicated that such payment should be made.

According to NTC Case No 2011-072, PLDT was supposed to be paid for its investment in CURE.

Pangilinan supposedly quoted P3 billion as a good price for the third telco to pay PLDT. But he clarified that he did not specify such requisite.

“I never said, ‘It’s the requirement of the government that you have to pay us ‘X’ for us to return the frequency’. There is no such thing. Just to clarify,” he said.

Being compensated for the CURE frequencies is “no longer a big deal” and that PLDT “sort of forgot about it,” Pangilinan noted. —VDS, GMA News