Why it is taking too long?

WHEN former Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte became President he assured the public that he will authorize the entry of a third telecom carrier to operate in the country and thus put an end to the dominance of the two major players in the local telecommunications industry that are making oodles of money in the internet and cellular technology.

Today that promise of the president remains just that. A promise.

If the public were to ask how come the planned entry of a third major telco player is taking too long to realize the obvious answer would be that there are other entities who are bent on making sure that no third major telco player would operate in the country during the term of President Duterte.

This is dilemma that the President has seen and during his ‘talk show’ with Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo yesterday afternoon he made a commitment that he will now directly intervene on the matter and make sure that by December of this year a new major telco player will be allowed to operate in the country. He vowed that by Christmas he would have named the third major telco player that will compete in the business against giants Globe and PLDT. During the said talk show it would appear that the President was showing his exasperation over the turtle paced selection process for another major telco player in the country.

In fact based on statements made by a telecom industry expert in Davao, the very hometown of the President, the entry of a third major telecom player is quite difficult at the moment due to worries on the recovery of investment.

In a news report, Samuel Matunog, President of ICT Davao cited several barriers that prevent a new major telecom player from successfully operating in the country, among them are the high capital requirement and an industry that is not easy to penetrate.

Last June of this year the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) released yet another set of draft guidelines for the selection of the third major player this time proposing that the spectrum frequencies shall be bidded out and with a minimum bid of P36.58 billion.

You can just imagine this additional burden that is imposed on the prospective telco player who will have to shell out billions of pesos just for a frequency and will still have to spend billions of pesos more to put up his infrastructure in the event it is selected to operate in the country. This is why it is taking too long.

The President during his ‘talk show’ already intimated that he might authorize the free issuance of a frequency to the third telco player to facilitate its entry into the industry. This is a welcome development if indeed the President can make this happen.

But of course, reality will also tell us that the two existing telco giants in the country will certainly try to move heaven and earth to prevent a third telco player and competitor to enter a business that they are lording it over.

This is why it is taking too long. of our identity. Our parents will have different ways of raising us. This is the primary factor of our uniqueness and the primary shaper of our identity. We may learn to operate cellular phones at an early age because our parents have the capacity to buy one or our parents just want to pacify us instantly so they give us gadgets. Our parents may not be working so we stay with them all day and night enjoying an unlimited milk either from mother’s breast or from the bottle. This two situations present the difference in upbringing us.

As we grow older, we meet more and more people. We come to know relatives who are talkative and loud and as a result so we learn to talk much. Other babies may remain timid and shy because their parents hardly go out. We meet cousins and family friends who have different personalities and so we are introduced to another way of life. We are exposed. While doing these other children may be busy learning their abc’s and 123’s. When these toddlers meet, others prefer to stay outside and play while others choose to cling to their mothers’ hand. By the time we are six years old, people have an idea of our identity.

Our identity will continue to take its form as our environment expands. There is the time when we go to the school and experience for the first time how it feels being left behind with people who are not part of our immediate family. We make simple decisions and we may be relieved or disappointed with them depending on the consequences. We make friends. We make best friends and learn to understand there are people who cannot be our friends. We learn what we like and what we do not. We experience sadness and happiness, learn the things that people do not generally like. We enter adolescence and the world is beginning to be in our grasp. By this time, others and perhaps we, ourselves, have already a sketch of our identity and people can somehow describe who we are.

As we enter adulthood, we begin to give meaning to our experiences and to the different things happening around us. Unlike before when we let others tell us the meaning of this things, this time, we bank on our intellect and emotions to give meanings to them. Our uniqueness is apparent. We have our own way of solving problems. We have a different way of expressing ourselves. We comment on things we do not like. There we are, among other individuals, yet our individuality is very much evident.

Our environment contribute greatly in shaping who we are. Part of our initial identity is the product how our environment, especially our family and neighborhood, formed us in our younger years. Once we mature in thinking and grow in wisdom, it is expected that we either make changes or maintain how we were molded to solidify our identity. Either we did something or not, we created an identity. The only question is what kind of identity have we and our environment created for ourselves? What have they done to us? What have we done to ourselves? Who are we?