In the past, we have not hesitated from criticizing the country’s telecommunications companies—Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. and Globe Telecom Co.—for their shameless treatment of their customers, gouging their eyes with high prices for services all the while providing them with one of the most inefficient services in the world.
Threatened by the possible entry into the telco market of the Australian firm Telstra, in partnership with San Miguel Corp., they committed new investments in the next few years to bring their services up to minimum expectations. Whether they will actually carry out these investments, especially now that Telstra has exited from the picture, is anybody’s guess.
But now there is apparently another side to this story. And this concerns some local government units. In a recent news report, a Globe Telecom official was quoted as saying that their efforts at deploying new cell sites in the Metro Manila area were being hampered by the hostile reception given them by the cities involved. The hostility ranged from neighborhood associations opposition, homeowners’ associations restrictions, political squabbling when approving authorities involve politicians of opposing political parties.
Most frustrating, according to the Globe official, were difficulties relating to documentation and municipal regulations—assessment of tower fees; cell-site permits; allowable tower heights by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines; proof of ownership of the cell site; tax arrears; permit to operate a cell site; and the refusal of banks to issue a consent when the proposed cell site is mortgaged to them, among others. It is said operators needed to secure an average of 25 permits at the local government units (LGUs) level to build a single cell site. The process takes at least eight months to complete. The cost is an average of P18 million per site.
This is outrageous. Whether it is a spin intended to justify telco slowness of action or lack of it does not matter. This revelation must be acted upon quickly. President-elect Rodrigo R. Duterte’s eight-point development program includes using the “Davao Model” for the enhancement of the process of doing business in the Philippines. The Davao Model requires the elimination of red tape, buck-passing, graft and corruption, and the completion of the whole application process in two days. The Davao Model must apply to Metro Manila cities.
Many LGUs are models of efficiency, receiving awards from the national association of LGUs for this. But there are also a few dysfunctional ones. Prey to the propaganda of copy-cat environmentalists, they have been setting up all kinds of obstacles to the development of the mining industry in their localities, never mind that their communities suffer from high unemployment and intense poverty.
If these inefficient LGUs need to be instructed on the need for consistence between local policy and national policy, let that instruction be issued as soon as possible. We cannot allow our national development to be stalled by LGU pigheadedness any more than we can permit it to be held hostage to telco infidelity.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano