DAVAO CITY—He may be right, but the government isn’t about to give up its role as protector and regulator.
This was incoming Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez’s comment when asked about the recent call of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) chair Manuel V. Pangilinan to the government to “get out of the way” of the private sector’s initiatives.
“In general, he’s right because the government should not dictate what kind of business you go into, but the government has a job to make sure the competition is fair [and] the prices being charged is fair. Isn’t that our job? We have to do that job,” Dominguez told the
Inquirer on the sidelines of the two-day business summit initiated by the incoming Duterte Cabinet at SMX Convention Center on Monday.
Dominguez cited electricity rates. “You cannot just charge what you want because you are a monopoly, that’s why you have the ERC (Energy Regulatory Commission). We have to regulate that.”
He said the government’s primary role was to protect the consumers, the community and the environment.
“You cannot say you can mine anywhere you want if it will damage the resources of the community. We have to get involved, we have to protect the citizens,” Dominguez said.
On Tuesday, Pangilinan said the private sector was leading multibillion-peso initiatives to improve the country’s digital technology. He was referring to PLDT’s efforts to meet consumers’ demand for efficient internet capability.
Digital moves
Speaking to provincial journalists who were invited by PLDT to Makati City for its annual stockholders meeting, Pangilinan said no government funds had been involved in the company’s digital moves.
“Whose money is being spent? It’s the private sector’s. There is no guarantee from the government, no government fund is involved, so get out of the way, period,” Pangilinan said.
“If ever the huge undertaking comes out lousy, it’s the company that will suffer the impact, to the delight of its competitors, and not the government,” he said.
If private projects fail, he added, “the government will not rescue us.”
Pangilinan also welcomed the warning of President-elect Rodrigo Duterte to telcos that he would open up the industry to foreign investors if local companies failed to improve their services.
He said Duterte was correct on the importance of a fast internet service.
But Pangilinan said PLDT had been doing its best to satisfy its costumers.
Venture with Globe
“We are not sitting on our ass,” he said adding that the company has been expanding its network and building cell sites.
He also cited PLDT’s recent venture with Globe Telecom in buying Vega Telecom Inc., the telco business of San Miguel Corp. (SMC), which he said was aimed at improving internet service in the country.
Pangilinan said PLDT also had increased its capital expenditures this year to about P43 billion to improve its services.
“It’s not a small amount of money but things can’t be achieved miraculously. There are impediments but that’s part of the landscape,” he added.
He clarified, though, that PLDT did not disagree with the incoming administration on the need to improve the country’s internet service.
“We are violently in agreement with the government, no disagreement there,” Pangilinan said.
But he said he refused to believe that the Philippines had the world’s slowest internet connectivity.
“We’re not the slowest. I don’t believe that. I’m not saying we’re on top of Korea or Singapore but we should not believe the myth that we are the slowest,” he added.
A survey conducted by internet metrics provider Ookla last year showed the Philippines ranks 176th among 202 countries, with an average household download speed of 3.64 megabits per second (Mbps).
The Ookla survey said despite its being laggard, the internet service in the Philippines was expensive at $18.9 per Mbps compared with the global average of $5.21.