The National Telecommunications Commission ordered Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Corp. to pay nearly half a billion pesos of unpaid regulatory fees as of last year.
NTC, in a resolution dated Sept. 28, denied the request of PT&T to reverse its resolutions dated October 2011 and March 2017. The agency also ordered the company to settle supervision and regulation enforcement fees amounting to P329.67 million from 2002 to 2015 and P114.11 million from 2016 to 2017.
“For respondent’s failure to contest the computation within the time allowed, the commission deems the basis and resulting computation of the respondent’s SRF from 2002 as final and binding,” it said.
“As the finality of the March 31, 2017 decision likewise fixed the basis for computing SRF on the respondent’s paid capital of P10.76 billion,” it said.
PT&T said it would contest the NTC decision. The company said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange its board of directors approved the filing of an appropriate action or petition before the Court of Appeals to question the NTC ruling, requiring the company to pay an “erroneous” amount of SRF.
“While PT&T is required to pay an annual SRF, the amount PT&T is being required to pay under the 28 September 2018 decision of the NTC is erroneous for the same was computed by the NTC based on the wrong paid-up capital of PT&T,” it said.
Telecom and broadcast companies pay an SRF of P0.50 for every P100 of paid capital.
Based on the terms of reference issued by NTC, interested participants should have no uncontested outstanding liabilities such as SRF and SUF, other penalties, surcharges and interests to the agency as of Oct. 1, 2018.
PT&T, a potential third player in the local telecom industry, holds a 25-year franchise which allows the company to establish, maintain and operate both wired and wireless telecommunications systems for domestic and international communication in the Philippines.
Its existing, scalable network and infrastructure, spanning over 10,000 kilometers of pure fiber optic cables allow it to easily meet the network demands of customers in the Greater Manila area, northern and southern Luzon and Cebu.