Pangilinan: PLDT does not owe gov’t P8B

Manny Pangilinan on Thursday said PLDT Inc. did not owe the government P8 billion as President Duterte had claimed.

“I don’t know. I checked internally, [what do we owe]. We don’t know,” said Pangilinan, also the CEO of PLDT.

“As far as we know, we don’t have any debt … [We] pay taxes regularly on a [quarterly] basis and in fact, in advance,” Pangilinan said at the inauguration of the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) Harbor Link Segment 10 and the groundbreaking for the NLEx-South Luzon Expressway connector road in Caloocan City.

Duterte earlier threatened to shut down PLDT, saying it owed the government P8 billion, and demanded that it improve access to the 8888 Hotline, where people can complain about government services.

Pangilinan said PLDT added 24 trunk lines to the hotline “to ease congestion” on Tuesday, two days after the President made his threat. —CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO