Legit subscribers feel pinch of cable piracy

Mrs. Ella Cruz of Barangay Olympia, Makati City, has been a longtime cable TV subscriber.

Recently, however, she has been feeling shortchanged.

Not once has she missed paying her bills, but cable service seemed better years ago when the signal was crystal clear.

These days, Ella laments that her cable TV reception seems to have deteriorated.

She may not know it, but legitimate subscribers like her are the real victims of the growing cable piracy problem in Metro Manila.

If left unchecked, cable theft will divest more consumers like her of quality cable service.

"Cable companies may have been bleeding financially, but it is the subscribers who are at the losing end in the cable piracy crisis," said Elpidio Paras, vice chairman and former president of the Philippine Cable Television Association (PCTA).

Cable companies are currently waging an aggressive clean-up campaign against illegal connections to ease the burden of legitimate subscribers.

Last Sept. 13, raiding teams dismantled 91 illegal connections in Barangay Bangkal, Makati.

Residents with illegal connections were invited to police stations and barangay halls for interrogation in connection with possible qualified theft charges to be leveled against them.

Qualified theft carries a jail term of six to 12 years if proven guilty.

The Makati raid was the third of a series of surprise raids in selected cities in Metro Manila.

Cable companies, with the help of the police and barangay officials, earlier swooped down on various parts of Makati, Mandaluyong and Las Piñas.

The raids netted two bogus linemen and hundreds of illegal cable connections.

Paras said illegal cable connections cause a 30 to 40 percent degradation in cable signals.

This translates to ghost images, static lines, blurred pictures, hissing noises, sudden flickers on screen and surges of static noise that can damage a TV set. Thus, legitimate subscribers are not just being robbed of cable signals, they are prone to other potential losses as well.

"The worst thing is that many subscribers out there don’t know they’ve been had," Paras pointed out. "They are virtually paying for other people‘s illegal cable connection and they only complain when the signal has become so bad."

He said cable theft in Metro Manila has become so rampant that the number of illegal connections have surpassed the total number of subscribers of all the cable companies combined.

"Legitimate subscribers are paying for these illegal connections and they get nothing in return," Paras said.

That is why cable companies are urging their subscribers to report incidents of cable theft as well as bogus linemen offering free cable in their neighborhood.