PT&T amends petition vs NTC over new telco selection

filed an amended Petition for Certiorari with the Supreme Court to strengthen its arguments in its case against the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) and the new major player selection committee.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the listed company said its board of directors approved the filing of an amended Petition for Certiorari with the SC on Wednesday. The amended Petition for Certiorari was filed with the SC on the same day.

On Nov. 16, PT&T filed a Petition for Certiorari of even date with the SC assailing the acts the NTC and the NMP selection committee committed during the selection process for the new major player in the Philippine telecommunications market.

PT&T in its original petition argued that the NMP selection committee acted with grave abuse of discretion and beyond its jurisdiction when it revised the terms of reference in regard to technical capability by applying only to foreign telcos the rule that having a regional scale of telecommunications operations for the last 10 years qualifies as operations on a national scale.

“The NMP selection committee has no legal authority to change the terms of reference which were earlier issued by the NTC En Banc with the help of the Oversight Committee and the Philippine Competition Commission. That unauthorized revision is void for such lack of legal authority and also because it violated the provision in the Constitution on the equal protection of the laws by unfairly discriminating against local telcos while favoring foreign ones,” PT&T said.