MikeLigalig.com

By Delon Porcalla

Speaker Prospero Nograles yesterday said that telecommunications companies should shoulder Congress’ proposed 10-centavo additional fee for texting and not pass the burden to consumers.

“Being the so-called texting capital of the world, our people should be able to benefit from the billions of profits of our telcos,” he asserted, insisting that the current P1 per text rate “should be cheaper by 75 centavos.”

“In the first place, text services should not even be charged, being a value added service. And since our telcos are raking in so much profit from this service, we might as well ask them to give back to our people,” Nograles pointed out.

“Even if we charge a 10-centavo fee on every text sent, the telcos are still overcharging us by 65 cents per text,” the Speaker stressed. The estimated threshold amount of text is about 25 centavos but telcos charge an average of P1 per text on its non-promo rates.

Nograles has been calling on the country’s telecom giants – Smart, Globe and Sun Cellular – to practice social responsibility by setting aside some P200 million from profits from the approximately two billion text messages sent by Filipinos per day.

He said the 10-centavo fee for each text message can go a long way in funding the government’s health and educational programs, but stressed the amount should be taken from the regular cost being charged by mobile phone service providers.

To avoid questions on the disbursement of fees generated from text messages, Nograles suggested that the fund be “administered by a board composed of owners and telecom players.”

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