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Telcos ordered to shut services for SONA even as Duterte threatens firms
By JON VIKTOR D. CABUENAS,GMA News Telecommunications firms were ordered to temporarily shut down their mobile services in Quezon City on Monday afternoon while President Rodrigo Duterte delivered his State of the Nation Address (SONA) during which he threatened these very companies if they failed to improve services by December.
According to Pangilinan-led Smart Communications Inc., it was ordered to have its mobile services temporarily unavailable.
"We were ordered to shut down services in the Quezon City area," it said in a statement sent via mobile message.
"Services going up (in) a bit. SMS will be sent to affected customers," Globe Telecom Inc. spokesperson Yolanda Crisanto said in a separate mobile message, when asked to confirm if they were also ordered to temporarily shut down services.
In a message to subscribers, Globe said it was unable to notify in advance "as directed by the NTC for security reasons."
While mobile services were down, Duterte delivered his fifth SONA, where he also threatened both Smart and Globe with consequences unless they improved services by December.
According to Duterte, he would find a way to work with Congress to have telco firms out of the industry should they fail to improve by that time.
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"The next two years will be spent improving the telecommunications of the country without you. I will talk to Congress and find a way how to do it," he added.
Globe responded by saying it will heed such calls, while a statement from Smart was not immediately available.
Both Globe and Smart will compete with Dito Telecommunity Corp., which is backed by Davao-based businessman Dennis Uy, who supported Duterte's presidential bid in 2016.
The Dito consortium is made up of Uy's Udenna Corporation, Udenna's subsidiary Chelsea Logistics Holdings Inc., and Chinese state-owned China Telecommunications Corporation.
Dito failed to meet its first-year commitments on the July 8 deadline under its Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN), but was given six more months by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to meet this.
The company earlier this month said it was on track to commercially launch by March 2021. — DVM, GMA News