SC orders NTC, Globe, PLDT to answer plea vs. 700 MHz frequency deal

The Supreme Court has ordered the government and major telecommunications companies to answer a petition for the revocation of the co-use agreement between Globe Telecom, Inc. and PLDT, Inc. over the 700 megahertz (MHz) frequency.

In an en banc session, the high tribunal ordered the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), Philippine Competition Commission (PCC), Globe, PLDT, and Smart Communications Inc. to file within 10 days their comment to the petition by lawyers Joseph Lemuel Baligod Baquiran and Ferdinand Tecson, a court source said Tuesday.

Likewise ordered to comment on the pleading, which has a request for a temporary restraining order, were respondents Liberty Broadcasting Network Inc., now known as Tori Spectrum Telecom, Inc. and Bell Telecommunications, Inc.

Apart from the revocation of the co-use agreement, Baquiran and Tecson's petition wants PLDT and Globe restrained from "utilizing and monopolizing" the "scarce public resource" frequencies, and for the frequencies to be recalled, assigned in favor of the state, and later made available for the "best qualified" telco players.

The pleading questions the validity of the co-use agreement between Globe and PLDT-Smart for "having an impossible object of contract."

It alleges that the assignments of the 700 MHz broadcast frequency and 2540-2545 MHz, 2580-2595 MHz, 2535-2540 MHz and 2565-2580 MHz frequencies to Liberty and, after that, to BellTel, are "illegal and void."

The petition says Liberty "continued to illegally hoard" the said frequency even when it was no longer engaged in the broadcasting industry.

In 2016, the NTC approved the use of the 700 MHz frequency by both Globe and Smart, PLDT's mobile subsidiary.

The companies earlier said that using the 700 Mhz spectrum would allow the industry to provide faster broadband and data speeds in a more cost-efficient manner.

The subject frequencies were previously held by San Miguel Corp. and were acquired by PLDT and Globe in a P69-billion deal sealed in 2016.

The lawyers' petition also accuses the NTC of gross abuse of discretion, and both the NTC and PCC of unlawfully neglecting the performance of their positive duties as provided by law. — MDM, GMA News