DICT urges telco bidders to comply with timeline

Third telco aspirants must comply with the government’s set timeline for choosing the new major player or they will be placed under President Duterte’s own selection method.

“This timeline, it did not come from us. It came from the President. And if we fail, then all of these we’re doing right now will all become useless and it will be the President himself who will do the choosing. So it can come to that,” Information and Communications Technology Secretary Eliseo Rio warned.

Duterte in a televised interview last month warned that he would put the third telco selection process under the Office of the President should there be no development by November. Rio, however, told

earlier that there would be no need for that, as a third telco player would definitely be named before the year ends, with November a big possibility.

“So if you think you would want the President to do the choosing, then trying to delay the timeline that he set will be the answer,” Rio said in a public forum Tuesday afternoon.

Rio said while some stakeholders are still asking for an extension as they see the current timeline as too tight, the important thing is that the

third telco aspirants expressed no opposition to the schedule.

The government released last Sept. 21 the long awaited final rules and regulations on the selection of a new major player in the Philippine telecommunications market, paving the way for the awarding of the third telco before the year ends as promised by President Duterte in hopes of breaking the prevailing duopoly in the sector.

Memorandum Circular 09-09-2018 will become effective on Oct. 6 and an invitation to bid will be published the next day. Submission and opening of bids are set on Nov 7.

NTC commissioner Gamaliel Cordoba said last month that participating companies and the “provisional new major player” would already be known by the day of the submission and opening of bids.

The selection committee will then verify, validate and ascertain all the submitted selection documents of the provisional new major player within a period of three days and should all the documents be found valid, it will be declared as the third telco player.

The third telco player will have 90 days from the issuance of its confirmation order to submit documents necessary for the processing of its Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity.