DICT ready to fight DOF over preferred selection for 3rd telco

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is prepared to fight for its preferred selection method for a third telco player.

DICT Secretary Eliseo Rio said his agency is ready to defend its position on the use of the highest committed level of service (HCLoS) method in choosing the third telco player to break the existing duopoly in the industry.

Rio is set to push for the HCLoS method in the oversight committee meeting set for this week to move forward with the third telco selection.

An oversight committee was formed by President Duterte in April under Administrative Order 11 to assist the National Telecommunications Commission in coming up with the terms of reference for the entry of a new major player in the telco industry.

The committee is chaired by the DICT, and is composed of the DOF, Office of the Executive Secretary, and national security adviser.

“We’ll report that this is now what we are moving forward (with). Hopefully there will be no more strong objection that we cannot use this because we have something now to back us up,” said Rio, referring to the results of a stakeholders consultation last Friday where the HCLoS method won by an overwhelming margin against the DOF-backed auctioning of frequencies.

“Secretary Carlos Dominguez III can come up defending his own position, but more or less, as far as the DICT is concerned, we have I think enough data and enough encouragement to go with the HCLoS,” he added.

Dominguez earlier expressed concerns on the proposed HCLoS process, saying that he finds it “weak.”

“You know, the beauty contest in the past resulted to frequency hoarding and those companies failed to improve service. They just made money by flipping assets government owns. I don’t want that to happen again,” the finance chief said in a statement last month.

Rio, however, warned that the auction method, which the DOF is pushing for, may not yield the best result the government is hoping for.

“If we force the auction, maybe not even two will join. And if ever, those that are keen on this method do not have foreign partners yet, unlike those who are for the HCLoS, we can say about four of them have foreign partners already,” he said.

“We have been working under this type of awarding frequencies since the beginning. We have never done an auction. Why should we force here on the third player to start with that auction?” Rio added.