Globe, Senate spurred to action after Enrile’s outburst

Globe Telecom has started investigating the complaint of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile over the diminution of his prepaid cell-phone load, said Froilan Castelo, the service provider’s head for regulatory affairs.

Castelo clarified that subscribers who agree to the offers of ringtones, games and MMS pictures by content providers are apt to experience diminution of load even if they do not use their mobile phones to call, or to text.

“They experience deduction of loads perhaps because of the ringtone or ring back,” he said, adding if the firm’s investigation would show that the service providers are at fault, “we terminate their services.”

Enrile had called for the Senate inquiry after noting that his pre-paid load in his Globe-serviced cell phone had gone down three times even when he was not using it.

This prompted Sen. Bong Revilla, chairman of the Committee on Public Services, to initiate an investigation even during the congressional recess.

The Second Regular Session adjourned sine die Wednesday evening. The 14th Congress would next meet at the inaugural session of the Third Regular Session on July 27, 2009. However, Senate committees have been authorized to conduct hearings even during the recess.

Revilla said he would call Globe, Smart and Sun Cellular to the committee hearing.

He said that prepaid cell-phone subscribers have been protesting against the “pernicious confiscation” of unused load credits, putting of expiration dates on the pre-paid load credits, as well as the “excessive and unnecessary” advertisements by these telcos.

“Since a franchise is merely a privilege granted by the government through Congress, it would be tantamount to a gross violation of their franchise if such claims be proven true,” he said.

When news of his problems regarding his cell-phone load came out, Enrile said he was flooded with similar complaints.

Enrile’s outburst on his cell-phone load led to calls for an investigation by Sen. Joker Arroyo who claimed that telcos charge per minute of calls even though the law says every six seconds.

Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero meanwhile complained of frequent dropped calls as a result of overloaded cell sites.

Sen. Richard Gordon, for his part, cited unsolicited or spam messages such as ringtones.

The senators said it would look into complaints against services of telcos.

Enrile said he was ready to appear at the inquiry but would prefer that it be done after two weeks to give the senators time to rest.

--Efren L. Danao And Francis Earl A. Cueto
Manila Times