MANILA, Philippines— (UPDATE) Congress has halved to five centavos its proposed fee on text messages and mobile phones calls.

But Congress wants to implement the fund raising measure as early as next month through implementing rules and regulations (IRR) to be issued by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).

Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez said on Tuesday the House oversight committee softened on its initial 10-centavo text fee, as it believed that the 5 centavo-charge per text or call would be enough to bankroll the construction of computer centers for public elementary and high schools with a student population of more than 500.

He said he cut by half his proposed increase from 10 centavos because it was an “unpopular move” and hopefully this would persuade telecommunications firms to bear the extra cost.

But from the original proposal to impose a fee on text messages, Suarez’s new proposal would also include calls.

Following a meeting by the oversight committee, Suarez said the members agreed that the text and call fee could be imposed even without legislation as a mere IRR by the NTC.

"This means we can go ahead with the collection as early as April and generate enough money for the construction of computer centers by the start of the school year in June," said Suarez who was wary of putting the text and call fee through legislation because of the strong lobby of the cash rich telecommunication firms.

Suarez estimated that the 5-centavo tax on text messages and cell phone calls would generate P70 billion in funds every year that would be used to pay for the construction, maintenance and operation of the computer centers.

Suarez said the House focused on computer centers in schools as the sole beneficiary of the text-and-call fee because of its potent impact on improving the skills of elementary and high school students.

With about two billion text messages sent every day, the lawmaker said that the extra fee would easily generate P100 million a day.

Suarez said that while the telecommunication firms would oppose the additional fee, he expected them to absorb at least half of the extra cost while passing the other half to subscribers.

He said the amount to be generated would be placed in a “trust fund” for the exclusive use of the government’s computer literacy program for public elementary, high school and college students.

The priorities for the program are the 28,773 villages with elementary schools and some 4.3 million high school students who do not have computer classes.

The committee will present its proposal to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her Cabinet to get their views, Suarez added.

Meanwhile, Suarez said the NTC would set up an infrastructure to have a metering system that would monitor the text messages or calls from the country’s telecommunications providers.