Go easy on Chinese telco, Drilon warns gov’t

Senator Franklin Drilon. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/JOAN BONDOC

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said on Wednesday the government should tread carefully on allowing a Chinese telecommunications company from being the third player in the country, asking it looked into the “security aspect” of it first.

“We need competition. But we should be conscious that we should make sure that our national security is addressed carefully,” Drilon told reporters.

Drilon was reacting to President Duterte’s bid to have a Chinese telecom company to start operating by the first quarter next year, so as to break up the “duopoly” of PLDT Inc. and Globe Telecom Inc., which had been dominating the telecom industry in the country.

Welcome dev’t, but…

In a statement, Drilon said the entry of a Chinese company into the telecom industry was a “welcome development” but he asked the need to “exercise caution and (for) the government (to) look into the security aspect of this undertaking.”

“The Chinese companies are state-owned while those operating in the Philippines are purely private. The Chinese government is already an investor in our national grid. The government should look into this matter,” Drilon also said.

Duopoly vs nat’l security

Sen. Panfilo Lacson tweeted his reaction to the Palace announcement that Mr. Duterte wanted China Telecom Corp. to be operational in the country in the first quarter of 2018.

“China Telecom: the heck of a choice between duopoly and national security. One is doom; the other, doomier. Isn’t there a third alternative?” Lacson said.