PLDT demands DITO to pay P429.7 million; 3rd player says disclosure 'misleading'

Pangilinan-led telecommunications giant PLDT Inc. is asking DITO Telecommunity Corp. to pay for over P400 million worth of services, which the latter allegedly refused to settle.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Friday, PLDT said that it sent DITO a Notice of Material Breach and Demand for Payment as a result of DITO’s refusal to pay P429,726,315.79 for contracted services fully performed and delivered.

The Pangilinan-led telco said that the contracted services were related to the building and provisioning of transmission facilities that DITO is currently using for the delivery of telecommunication services to its subscribers.

“DITO has 30 days from receipt of the Notice of Material Breach, or until November 4, 2022, to remedy the breach and pay the P429.7 million owed to PLDT, otherwise PLDT will exercise all of its rights under law and contract to protect its interests, including suspension or termination of the parties’ service agreement,” it said.

In its comment, DITO said it believed the information was misleading.

“DITO was compelled to enter into an agreement with PLDT for the provisioning of the transmission facilities to allow DITO to interconnect with the subscribers of PLDT’s affiliate/subsidiary, SMART Communications, Inc. (SMART) for the purpose of supporting the parties’ obligations under their Interconnection Agreement,” said Atty. Adel Tamano, DITO’s chief administrative officer in a statement.

“SMART’s adamant refusal to augment DITO’s capacity (to interconnect with SMART’s subscribers) has to no small degree compromised DITO-SMART voice traffic, adding to the underutilization of the initial bandwidth capacity provided by SMART to DITO. Thus, DITO, in a series of letters to PLDT and prior to the delivery of the subject transmission facilities, informed the latter that the same are no longer needed,” he added.

Tamano said the parties had started talks to amicably resolve the issue but PLDT, in material breach of the dispute resolution mechanism under the parties’ agreement, still proceeded in pursuing this unreasonable claim.”

“Lastly, PLDT violates the parties’ confidentiality agreement for the unwarranted disclosure because it was made without prior written notice to and/or written consent of DITO as required in the contract,” Tamano said.

To recall, PLDT’s wireless unit Smart, Globe Telecom, and DITO were embroiled in a corporate battle after the third telecommunications player accused its rivals of abuse of dominance due to DITO’s interconnection issues with both Smart and Globe.

Smart and Globe fired back and accused DITO of refusing to compensate them for alleged interconnection violation which involved International Simple Resale (ISR) calls —identified as international in origin but masked as local calls—placed through DITO's network and bypassed proper voice traffic channels. —NB, GMA News