Over 1K telco tower permits approved by LGUs, Año says
MANILA, Philippines — Local governments in the country have approved over 1,000 applications to construct cell towers filed by telecommunications companies, interior secretary Eduardo Año disclosed late Monday night.
Speaking at a televised public address with President Rodrigo Duterte, the former military general said that 1,171 have been approved as of this week, with 428 additional applications still yet to be processed out of a total of 1,930.
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In a televised Cabinet meeting in August, Año told Duterte that out of 1,930 applications submitted by telcos to 80 LGUs this year, 1,502 had already been approved.
"The world and the country have gone digital. We really need to look into the construction of more towers because school setups are mostly online classes...So I hope all other LGUs will follow," he told Duterte at the meeting in Filipino.
“A provision in the [Bayanihan 2] provides for the automatic rollout of telcos in the construction of PTTIs or PassiveTelecom Tower Infrastructure. Except for building permits and night clearance permits, all other requirements were waived. Once these permits are complied with, this would be processed immediately," he added.
He added that local governments have generally Año said complied with the president's directive to fast-track the process for the construction of cell towers to boost cellular and internet services with many Filipinos shifting to online classes and work from home arrangements over the coronavirus-induced lockdowns.
Año singled out Manila City Mayor Isko Moreno Domagoso for being "complying at very commendatory" after the latter instituted a one-time approval of pending permits in the city after the department cut down on the requirements asked of any applying parties.
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According to 2017 data from Statista, there are around 18,000 cell sites in the country shared by about 30.4 million mobile phone users.
At an earlier address in late July, Duterte lamented the "very poor" state of telecommunication services in the country, noting that it has been the "agony of the Filipino people" for several years and going as far as threatening to seize the many companies' assets if the services offered do not shape up by December.
"If you are not ready to improve, I might just as well close all of you and we revert back to line telephone. I will expropriate that and give that to government," he said then.
— Franco Luna
Editor's Note: A unit under PLDT's media conglomerate has a majority stake in Philstar Global Corp., which runs Philstar.com. This article was independently produced following editorial guidelines.
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