In a letter to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), second-ranked Globe said the regulator should issue rules penalizing monopolistic behavior amid a "mismatched" level playing field that put consumers at risk.
The Ayala-led telecom company also sent the same letter to the Office of the President, the Senate President, the Speaker of the House, and the secretaries of the Departments of Transportation and Communications, of Justice, of Finance, of Trade and Industry, and of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology.
"The NTC cannot and must not shrink from its legal obligation to intervene in the PLDT-Digitel deal and regulate, if not forestall, the deal's grave implications and impact on free competition and, in the long term, the common good," Rodolfo Salalima, Globe legal counsel said in the 10-page letter.
PLDT earlier said it will buy 51.55 percent of Sun Cellular operator, Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc., from Gokongwei-led JG Summit Holdings Inc. in a share-swap deal valued at P69.2 billion. The Philippines' largest telco also will acquire the remaining Digitel shares held by the public, raising the total acquisition price to P74.1 billion.
Salalima said the government, through NTC, should implement "pre-emptive moves and regulations to protect fair and free competition" from the significant market power of the PLDT group.
He said PLDT's acquisition of Digitel would result in "tremendous dominant market clout, power and influence in the telecommunications industry" at 70 percent compared with Globe's 30 percent in a market of 82 million mobile phone subscribers out of a population of 92 million.
Given this, the NTC must return the level playing field in the industry, Salalima said, adding that the regulator should exercise its quasi-legislative power of revisiting spectrum frequency assignments.
Citing a frequency assignment ratio of 1:3.5 in favor of PLDT, Salalima said the NTC should re-assign or evenly distribute to Globe and to any deserving and qualified player the said frequencies to give them a fighting chance against PLDT.
"Such uneven distribution of the state's scarce but powerful public resource does not speak well of this Commission as the regulatory body, and of free competition in the market in this country," the lawyer said.
Globe also wants the government to enact an anti-trust law and the NTC to issue anti-trust policies/regulations in the form of memo-circulars that are remedial or curative in nature.
"Specifically, there is a need for the NTC to issue a memorandum circular defining a monopoly or a dominant position carrier such as that when any one telecommunication carrier or group controls a minimum 50 percent of the market in a single service sector," Salalima said.
Regulatory blackmail Sought for comment, Ray Espinosa, PLDT head of regulatory affairs, said Globe's letter is tantamount to "regulatory blackmail," as the issues raised were meant "to gain leverage and exact concessions" from the market leader.
"Globe wants to use the NTC to deliver these concessions to Globe on a silver platter," he said. Espinosa said the monopoly issue was a "ruse meant to weaken the resolve of the NTC to approve a deal that will bring enormous benefits to the public in terms of better service and accelerated high speed broadband Internet service throughout the country."
"It is clear from Globe's letter that they want concessions to make up for their own inefficiencies. And this at the public's expense," he said.
Gamaliel Cordoba, NTC commissioner, had said President Benigno Aquino 3rd already gave the regulator a marching order to study the PLDT-Digitel deal.
He said the acquisition affects not only Globe, but the telecom and business process outsourcing industries as well. "We are currently doing a study right now. We will consider the suggestions of Globe," he said.
