|
Globe,
Smart: Taking their collusion before the very eyes of the court
September
6, 2001
FIRST, they
both tried to cheat consumers. Now, they are apparently colluding
again to make a court take their words hook, line and sinker.
This was the
reaction of texters’ group TXTPOWER to similar motions filed
by lawyers of the telecommunications oligopoly of Smart-PLDT and
Globe-Ayala asking the Branch 214 of the Quezon Regional Trial
Court to dismiss the class-action suit filed by the Philippine
League for Democratic Telecommunications Inc. (PLDTI).
The same court
issued a 20-day temporary restraining order against the much-assailed
reduction in free text allocations for the at least seven million
subscribers.
“The
court would be well-advised to take note any possible conspiracy
or collusion by the lawyers of Globe-Ayala and Smart-PLDT in trying
to defeat the case against them. They did it again in brazen oligopolistic
fashion,” said TXTPOWER spokesperson Anthony Ian Cruz.
“Its
no different from the way the oligopoly charge consumers similar
exorbitant rates and lousy services and the manner of announcing
the ‘free’ text cuts and the way they later proposed
a staggered implemented,” he stressed.
At the same
time, Cruz bared that TXTPOWER will formally ask senators this
week to initiate public hearings on the ‘free” text
cuts, “in aid of legislation against oligopolies in the telecommunications
industry and towards a review of the deregulation policy”
for the benefit of millions of texters and cellphone users.
“Apart
from a quick, pro-consumer action by the NTC action that we are
now awaiting, these are perhaps the best ways to guarantee government
protection of consumers from the oligopolies and arbitrary or
hidden price increases.”
Cruz maintained
that up to now, the two firms have “miserably failed to justify”
the planned cuts on free text. “With net income soaring and
with loans for their expansion funds already approved, we find
no cause for them to pass on to consumers the burden of infusing
capital for their own purposes.”
|
