Passage of bill requiring telcos to share 50% of net revenues urged

MANILA, Philippines – Sen. Richard Gordon called on his colleagues yesterday to speed up the passage of his bill requiring telecommunication companies to share 50 percent of their net revenue earnings from local text messages to address the country’s ballooning backlogs in education and health infrastructures.

Under his proposal the government would easily generate some P73 billion that could be used for education and health programs.

He earlier said telecommunication firms were agreeable to his idea.

Gordon made the call as Education Secretary Jesli Lapus told the House appropriations committee on Wednesday night that despite the hefty increase in his agency’s budget for next year, public elementary and high schools would still be short of at least three million chairs for students.

Lapus said there would also be a shortage of teachers, principals, classrooms, and textbooks and other instructional materials.

The Department of Education (DepEd) needs an additional 39,762 teachers in 2009, but there would only be funds for the hiring of 10,000, or a shortage of 29,762, he said. In the case of principals, 8,499 would be required but only 1,961 would be hired while there would be a shortage of 4,215 classrooms.

Textbooks and other instructional materials would be short by at least 33 million, Lapus added.

He said his agency would need P259 billion to wipe out all shortages and achieve an ideal learning environment in public schools.

Gordon, chairman of the Senate government corporations committee, said Senate Bill No. 2402, also known as the Health and Education Acceleration Program (HEAP) Bill, would require every commercial mobile service provider to remit to the HEAP fund half of its net revenue earnings arising from text messages.

He projected that from an estimated 400 million text messages sent per day with each text message at the cost of P1 and P0.50 going to the HEAP Corp., the government would collect P73 billion in one year alone.

“It is a reality that our country’s educational system today is in a critical condition. Given the scarce government resources, there is a need to be innovative in our approach in harnessing investments for education and health modernization programs,” he said.

Gordon’s committee is scheduled to resume its second public hearing on SB 2402 by Monday next week.

Representatives from big telecommunication companies, including Smart Communications, Globe, and Sun Cellular, are expected to attend the hearing.

Gordon said aside from improving the educational system, there is also a need to enhance the country’s school health profile, which in itself had equally been in a similar dismal condition. – Christina Mendez