Dennis R. Babaran, NTC legal department director, said cross-examination of the oppositors’ witnesses has yet to be conducted.
After the cross-examination, Babaran said, the NTC will need additional time to make an evaluation.
Babaran has postponed the scheduled hearing today and set cross-examination of the witnesses of Globe Telecom Inc., TxtMate and Sealand Telecommunication Inc. for July 12 to 14.
The PLDT has presented four witnesses, all also subject to cross-examination.
Ray Espinosa, PLDT head of regulatory and policy affairs, said his company is still optimistic that it will meet the July 30 closing date target.
"We are hopeful that our application will be approves by the NTC because we have demonstrated that the acquisition is really for good public service. It will benefit the millions of Sun subscribers as well as potential Sun subscribers. We can bring their services nationwide," he said.
Last week, the PLDT and JG Summit Holdings Inc. said that they agreed to move the closing date of their sale and purchase agreement to July 30, from June 30, after they failed to secure approval of the NTC.
Rodolfo Salalima, Globe counsel, said cross-examination may take more than a week, depending on the witnesses, and PLDT may move for a rebuttal.
Salalima said Globe will present three witnesses next week.
PLDT signed an agreement with JG Summit last March 29 to buy all the latter’s interest in Digitel, made up of 3.277 billion common shares representing 51.55 percent of equity; zero coupon convertible bonds issued by Digitel; and inter-company advances of P34.1 billion. The three assets are valued at P69.2 billion.
In exchange, the PLDT will issue a new PLDT share for every P2,500 consideration of the deal, for a total share issue equivalent to a 13.7 percent stake in PLDT.
PLDT has also offered to buy the remaining 48.45 percent stake in Digitel held by the public at P1.60 per share in the next three months. The buyout will bring the total acquisition cost to P74.1 billion.
Once the consolidation is completed, PLDT will have more than 60 million mobile phone subscribers and nearly 3 million broadband subscribers.
