PLDT joins industry group

A new organization will soon emerge as the strongest and largest aggrupation in the telecommunications industry.

Sometime end of this month, the Philippine Chamber of Telecommunications (PCT) will be launched and will have as its members the country’s biggest telecommunications carriers.

The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), which for a long time was able to resist joining any industry aggrupation, has finally decided to be a part of PCT.

PCT’s core membership actually comes from the Telecommunications Operators of the Philippines (TOP), which severed from the Philippine Telecommunications and Electronics Federation (PETEF) just recently. TOP, which included all the carriers except PLDT, broke away from PETEF because the latter no longer serves the interest of the operators. TOP actually established PETEF but as the years went by, PETEF grew bigger and bigger and included other industries such as suppliers and, therefore, lost focus.

After TOP left PETEF and several companies (including Globe Telecom whose senior vice-president for corporate and legal affairs Rudy Salalima used to head PETEF) terminated their corporate membership, sources say PETEF is hardly surviving. In fact, it now has for its president Romy Agatep coming from the suppliers’ group.

TOP finally was able to convince PLDT, as well as the Philippine Association of Private Telephone Companies (Paptelco), to join a new group, PCT, that will replace TOP. Unlike PETEF, PCT will focus on the interests of the operators, and no one else’s.

The last laugh

PLDT’s Manny Pangilinan has all the reason to smile nowadays.

His enemies at First Pacific Co. – legal counsel Ron Brown and finance chief Michael Healy – were given until last week to leave the Hong Kong-based conglomerate. For a longtime, Brown and Healy plotted to oust Pangilinan out of FPC and PLDT. They thought they succeeded when they were able to convince FPC controlling shareholder Anthoni Salim that a sale of FPC’s interest in PLDT to the Gokongwei group can be worked out. As things turned out, it was easier said than done.

Months back, Brown and Healy were said to have engineered another black propaganda – that First Pacific was selling its PLDT stake to Telekom Malaysia and that Pangilinan was again on his way out. The report, carried by one local newspaper, turned out to be a dud.

Now, Pangilinan and Salim are back in each other’s arms and, unfortunately, for Brown and Healy, friends will be friends, no matter what.

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