Appeals court stops text refund order vs Digitel
The Court of Appeals CA stopped the ational Telecommunications Commission TC yesterday from implementing its order for telecommunications companies to refund alleged excessive charges on short messaging system SMS or text messages and to cut rates.
Smart Communications Inc., Globe Telecom Inc. and igitel hilippines Inc. had filed separate petitions before the CA questioning TC s decision in ovember directing them to reduce their regular retail price for SMS to other networks to not more than . per SMS from , and reimburse their subscribers the excess charge of . per off-net SMS from effectivity of TC Memorandum Circular MC o. - - in ecember . ff-net SMS refers to messages transmitted across different networks.
The appellate court first acted on the case of igitel, which operates Sun Cellular.
Through a -day temporary restraining order T , the sixth division of the appellate court stopped the TC from implementing its rulings denying the appeal of igitel against the implementation of the circular.
igitel was also asked to post a cash bond or surety bond of , .
“To our minds, justice would be better served if the implementation of the TC decision is restrained at this stage of the proceeding, especially that those who recently intervened in the case had already moved for the issuance of a writ of execution,” read the order penned by Associate ustice ricilla alta ar- adilla.
“To prevent any irremediable injury that petitioner may sustain in view of the enforcement of the impugned decision, it is prudent to preserve the status quo, pending determination of the propriety of the issuance of the said judgment,” it added.
The CA said a T on the enforcement of the refund is necessary as the recovery of the amounts to be paid by igitel in favor of subscribers might be impossible in the event that such order is nullified.
“ e agree with petitioner that there is no means for it to ascertain the existence of the subscribers and the identities of the actual users of the mobile identification numbers as may be found in its system. In addition, most of its subscribers are prepaid SIM card users,” the CA noted.
Apart from the T , the court also directed the TC to show cause why a writ of preliminary injunction should not be issued in favor of igitel.
ther divisions of the CA have yet to act on similar petitions filed by Smart and Globe against the TC orders on their respective cases.
In its ruling, the TC declared that igitel violated MC o. - - , which required the telecom firm as well as Globe and Smart to reduce their interconnection charge to . per off-net SMS from the then prevailing . .
The TC said it found that igitel did not lower its regular retail prices for SMS to other networks.
owever, in its petition for T or a writ of preliminary injunction, igitel argued that that TC order is “patently illegal and utterly without factual and legal basis.”
It claimed that its enforcement would result in great and irreparable injury to the firm.
The petitioner pointed out that it complied with the TC directive that it communicate with Globe and Smart to reduce interconnection charges from . to . .
It also argued that the interconnection rate is not the only component of the retail rate of SMS and that there is nothing in the circular that requires the reduction of the retail prices of SMS.
igitel also noted that the TC decision would force the company to make individual computations of every amount due per subscriber based on the number of regular SMS messages sent to other networks starting ec. , up to present.
igitel said the TC decision would also require the company to determine who among its subscribers availed of promos or bucket rates an undertaking that is logistically and technically difficult.