President Aquino calls for probe on ‘unfair competition’ claims

The President of the Philippines, Benigno S Aquino III, has directed the regulator the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) and the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) to address complaints of alleged unfair competition among telecommunications operators in the country. The president says his government is opposed to any form of monopoly situation developing and as such, his administration is bound to ensure that all Filipinos are protected. However, he made a point of saying the decision to launch the probe was not related to the controversial PLDT-Digitel merger, which is currently ongoing. ‘There are complaints from other players in the telecoms [market], there are a lot of technical aspects, so I’ve asked both NTC and DoST to look into the allegations,’ Aquino said. ‘The portion that I remember has to deal with the allocated frequencies and being adjacent to each other providing an undue advantage,’ he said. ‘[If] costs will be severely cut by this purported merger … nobody will be able to compete.’ The president is now waiting on the two agencies’ findings to see if there will be a limit to competition as a result of the deal.