Bulatlat.com

Telecom giants courting contempt of court

Executives of telecommunication giants Globe and Smart could face contempt of court if they are found guilty of violating the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by a lower court stopping the implementation of the planned text reduction scheme.

By A. HERNANDEZ
Bulatlat.com

A lawyer of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court which issued the TRO issued this warning over the weekend following reports that the telecom firms were already cutting the allocation of free text messages of their subscribers.

"If that is true, then the complainants should immediately file a complaint so that the Court could act on it," the lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Bulatlat.com.

Bulatlat.com made the query amidst complaints of cell phone subscribers on the "mysterious disappearance" of their free text credits.

Because of this, consumer group TXTPower said it would ask the Court to cite for contempt the officials of telecom companies Globe, Smart, Islacom and Piltel.

Last week, Judge Modesto Juanson of the QC-RTC Branch 216 issued a TRO against the telecommunications companies after a group of texters, including TXTPower, sought a preliminary injunction on the proposed reduction scheme.

The TRO prevented the telecom companies from implementing their plan to slash monthly allocations of free text messages within the next 20 days. The scheme was to have been implemented first week of September.

Globe and Smart had earlier said they would impose the reduction scheme by Sept. 1 but the court issued the order on Aug. 30.

But Anthony Ian Cruz, spokesperson of TXTPower, said his group received several complaints of "disappearing" text credits just a day after the court issued the TRO.

"Subscribers are noticing free text credits doing a 'disappearing act' even without being used up," Cruz told Bulatlat.com. "We've gotten similar complaints from all over."

A reporter of a national daily said she also had a similar experience after loading a P500 Smart Buddy card. An inquiry on the balance of free text shortly after making the load showed that instead of the usual 250 free text, it only contained 200.

"We hope some government agency would take the cudgels for subscribers since the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has rendered itself spineless by unilaterally declaring text messaging as a deregulated service," Cruz said.

Investigation

"At the very least, there must be an investigation into the case of disappearing free text credits," he added.

Cruz said that even Malacañang and Congress should intervene in defense of consumers who had been shortchanged by the telecom cartel.

"As subscribers, we are also taxpayers," Cruz maintained. "We pay taxes for every call and text message that we make. The least the government should do is to protect us from abuse and compel the oligopolies to provide us the services they advertise."

Bayan Muna Rep. Crispin Beltran immediately expressed support to the calls of TXTPower for a congressional inquiry on the telecom cartels' alleged violations.

Apart from this, he said, the officials of Globe and Smart should also be made to explain for their alleged attempt to bribe legislators and coerce members of the consumers group TXTPower into backing out of their planned protests against free text cuts.

"Officials of Globe and Smart have some very serious explaining to do," Beltran said, referring to the telecom firms' alleged violation of the TRO.

"Innocent or guilty, Smart and Globe should be obliged to junk all their plans to cut free texts altogether," the Bayan Muna legislator said. "These companies should not be allowed to get away with cheating the public, or with bribing public officials." Bulatlat.com

We want to know what you think of this article.