Joey de V: Implement lower texting rates
JOSE de Venecia III, son of former House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., has filed a civil case before the Regional Trial Court in Quezon City seeking to compel the National Telecommunication Commission (NTC) to implement its memorandum circular ordering telecommunication companies to lower the cost of text messaging by 20 centavos.
De Venecia, speaking in a press conference on Monday in Dagupan, said if his petition is granted, cellphone users would be saving an estimated P300 to P500 a month.
“It is just a small thing though the P300 to P500 a month saving per telecommunication user is good enough to pay one’s PagIbig loan, to pay for the fare of children going to school, and good enough for those with tight budget,” he said.
The NTC memorandum circular was issued in November 2011 but telecom companies have yet to comply arguing that the industry is deregulated and therefore text message rates are not subject to government control.
“My position is they are regulated,” said De Venecia, maintaining that the telecom companies are only deregulated in terms of the promotions that they offer.
The Philippines is estimated to have about 80 million cellphone users and the country has once been dubbed as the texting capital of the world with one billion messages sent everyday as of 2007.
De Venecia estimates that the number of text messages being sent daily today could already be 1.5 billion.
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