PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has admitted to personally asking his classmate, former Information and Communications Technology Secretary Rodolfo Salalima, to resign after apparently favoring the interests of telecommunications giant Globe Telecom over the entry of new players to break the monopoly in the telecoms industry. industry’s market duopoly.
He said in a television interview that Salalima was “lying” after claiming that he resigned due to the corruption in his agency.
“I want to open the market so that the rates will be much lower,” Duterte told state-run PTV-4.
“I’m not saying that he’s protecting someone, but the giant communications companies in China, Singapore”•he’s not doing any action,” Duterte said.
He said the industry complaints prompted him to ask his former classmate at the San Beda College of Law to instead resign.
“I whispered to him, Rudy, just resign,” Duterte said.
In fairness to him, but I’m not saying … but it seems to him he was favoring a company… the other players cannot enter the industry, which I said could bring the rates much lower.”
Duterte likewise said that when Salalima openly praised Globe Telecom in a speech attended by industry players, that turned him off.
Duterte added that Salalima never mentioned to him any whiff of corruption in his agency.
“All this time, the President did not mention anything about corruption. Everybody in the Cabinet, none,” he said.
Recently, Duterte approved the entry of an industry third player”•the former leading telegraph company Philippine Telegraph & Telephone Corp. as the firm challenging Globe and Smart Communications on the telecommunications business.
Listed firm PT&T said last month, in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, that it sold majority shares to Menlo Capital Corp., a company majority-owned by Zamora and Peregrino P. Fernandez.
In a hastily called general assembly with DICT officials last week, Salalima explained that he wanted to step down as the agency’s top official because he could not deal with corruption and interference.
Earlier, Duterte said he was already finding “the best guy” as a possible replacement for Salalima, whose agency is currently rolling out lucrative multi-billion projects such as the P1.7-billion free public Wi-Fi initiative and the P1.2-billion National Broadband Program.
