Senator Mar Roxas this week said Congress could consider granting the National Telecommu-nications Commission (NTC) more teeth in regulating the booming wireless telephone industry to ensure the protection of public interest.
But to those already have some forward movement pending this measure to strengthen the NTC, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade and Commerce has already formed a technical working group (TWG) to lay the ground for the implemen-tation of a per-second voice call rate regime.
According to Roxas, among the corrective legislation he would propose is to amend Republic Act No. 7925 or the Public Telecommunications Policy Act of 1995, which he noted has tied the hands of the NTC from imposing strict regulatory guidelines among the country’s telecom-munication providers.
NTC officials have told the Senate committee a court injunction on a Memorandum Circular containing telecom-munication policy regulations had tied their hands from imposing price and interconnection regulations over the telecom-munications industry.
On Wednesday’s hearing, Roxas has tasked the NTC to head the TWG formed by the committee to resolve technical and commercial issues to the implementation of per-second voice call rates in place of the present per minute regime.
The country’s top mobile telephone providers have already said they are open to the said regime provided sufficient and equitable regulations are put in place. /MP
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