IN a bid to resolve mounting consumer complaints, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) will issue soon new memorandum circulars (MC), which hopefully will give the commission more teeth in exercising its regulatory powers in a deregulated industry.

The provisions that will be contained in the new circular, according to deputy commissioner Douglas Michael Mallillin, will not be exactly similar to the nine-year-old MC, which to-date has remained unimplemented because the phone companies are opposed to the policies.

“We are somewhat amending the 2000 MC and we intend to come out with new circulars which will cater to the current times. When the old MC was crafted there were only two million cellular subscribers. We just want to issue new rules that will fit the current consumer behavior and pattern,” said the NTC official.

Among others, the NTC will issue circulars which will compel the cellular firms to give out load inquiry balance free of charge to their subscribers; provide consumer’s voice call charging options ranging from per-second to per-minute; amend the interconnection agreement between the carriers to reflect the mode of charging imposed on consumers; and impose stricter rules on content providers to avoid abuse.

“These are the circulars that we would like to work on. Instead of lumping it in one circular we intend to issue [several] MCs so that if we will amend it later on we won’t have any legal constraints or difficulties doing that. Technology is also evolving. It is better to do it this way,” added the NTC official.

The commission met the lawyers of Smart Communications Inc., Globe Telecom and Sun Cellular yesterday. They said they will have to see first the content of the draft circulars before they issue any comment.

For his part, NTC commissioner Ruel Canobas said the commission will also meet with the content providers on Tuesday to discuss the planned new circular.

The 2000 billing circular attempts, among others, to extend the validity of credit loads, to register the prepaid SIM (subscriber identification module) cards, and modify the unit of billing for cellular calls from per minute to six-second per pulse billing.

The policy directive was issued on June 16, 2000 despite protests from Smart and Globe. The NTC, which was then headed by now-Congressman Joseph Santiago, argued that the issuance of the billing circular was a reasonable exercise of the state’s police power.

Five months after the NTC issued the circular, the carriers got a temporary restraining order from the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (QCRTC). The NTC fought it out with the carriers by elevating the case to the Court of Appeals (CA) after its motion for reconsideration was denied by the lower court.

The CA granted the NTC’s petition for certiorari and prohibition. It then nullified and set aside the preliminary injunction granted by the QCRTC as well as dismissed the petitioners’ complaints and referred them back to the NTC, which it said had jurisdiction over the case.

But the telcos filed a petition for review before the Supreme Court, saying the CA erred in its ruling. The High Tribunal then remanded the matter to the QCRTC Branch 77.

The NTC, through the through the Office of the Solicitor General, asked the SC to reverse, set aside and issue a new order affirming the CA’s decision dated October 9, 2001 and resolution dated January 10, 2002.

To date, the case is still pending.