Ramon Jacinto dismisses DICT chief’s comments on common tower

MANILA, Philippines — Information and Communications Technology Acting Secretary Eliseo Rio’s comments on the common tower has been deemed irrelevant by presidential adviser on economic affairs and information technology communications Ramon Jacinto.

“As a matter of courtesy, outgoing Acting Secretary Rio should wait for incoming Secretary (Gregorio) Honasan to assume his position before further commenting on the common tower policy,” Jacinto said.

“The implementation of the policy will be done by incoming Sec. Honasan and the NTC, so Rio will have little or no say in it,” he said.

Jacinto’s statement was in response to Rio’s social media post last week,  in which the current head of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) expressed grave concern over the draft common towers policy as proposed and being pushed by Jacinto.

According to Rio, the draft policy would surely be challenged by the telcos in court because it potentially violates their legislative franchise that gives them the right to build their own telecommunication infrastructure, including towers. 

“Just because Globe and Smart say that our guidelines could be subject to legal challenges, it should not follow we should retreat from doing what is right to protect our consumers. It is natural for the existing operators to protect their territory and dominance,” Jacinto said.

“The President, in a Cabinet meeting in Camarines Sur on Jan. 4, gave orders to Rio not to let legal impediments delay what needs to be done in the telecoms industry and not to be afraid of TROs and lawsuits,” Jacinto said.

Jacinto said his office’s legal due diligence studies show that the government may validly issue a regulation for mobile network operators (MNOs) to share their existing towers with other operators and value-added service providers, require MNOs to locate future cellular sites on common shared towers to be built by independent common tower companies to be licensed by the government, and license and regulate the number of companies providing common towers for use by MNOs.

Jacinto said it is his job to safeguard both public interest and national security above all, particularly with the entry of the third telco player.

As such, he said his office is in close coordination with national security adviser Hermogenes Esperon in crafting the common tower policy.

“Secretary Esperon and I agree that for national security reasons, the tower companies must be strictly regulated and independent of ownership and undue influence by the mobile operators. For efficient market operations, the industry standard has historically shown that the number of tower companies are half the number of mobile operators so two common tower companies for three mobile operators is just right on target,” he said.