Losing 3rd telco bidders question Mislatel Consortium award

MANILA, Philippines — Controversies are piling up on Mindanao Islamic Telephone Co. (Mislatel), the company chosen by the provisional third telecommunication group of Dennis Uy’s Udenna Corp. and China Telecommunications as its congressional franchise-holder partner.

SEAR Telecommunications Consortium and publicly listed PT&T yesterday filed their motions for reconsideration with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) in their bid for the highly coveted third slot in the country’s telecommunications industry.

“We have won the bidding,” said politician Luis “Chavit” Singson, noting that his team can provide 20 times faster internet speed to Filipinos should they be named the third telco player.

Singson’s LCS Group of Companies is part of the SEAR Consortium, which is composed of six companies.

SEAR Consortium said their submission, should it be opened, had a final bid rate score of 500 points, as opposed to the Mislatel consortium of Uy and China Telecom that garnered a total of 456.80 points.

SEAR also said it has committed a total investment of P540 billion over a five-year period, more than double Mislatel’s proposed investment of P257 billion.

SEAR has also committed a network coverage of 100 percent in its first year of service, compared to the provisional new major player’s 37 percent coverage commitment in the first year and 84 percent after five years.

Singson said its network coverage commitment would be made possible through broadband satellites.

In terms of speed, SEAR is pledging 56 megabits per second in the first year of its service. Mislatel, meanwhile, has a committed speed of 27 Mbps in the first year, to be increased to 55 Mbps in the second year.

The country’s third telco player will be selected based on the highest committed level of service selection model, which consists of three selection criteria: national population coverage, minimum average broadband speed and capital and operational expenditure.

For its part, PT&T also claimed to have bested Mislatel’s offer in its submission, but it did not elaborate on the details of its bid.

“What did (Department of Information and Communications Technology Assistant) Secretary Eliseo Rio say? Will they file (a motion for reconsideration) if they know they will lose?” PT&T director Renato Garcia told The STAR.

During the opening of bids on Wednesday, PT&T and SEAR were disqualified after the preliminary evaluation for lacking certain requirements.

SEAR failed to submit its participation commitment, while PT&T failed to submit a certification of technical capability from the NTC.

SEAR and PT&T were given three days to file a motion for reconsideration, which they did yesterday.

The new major player selection committee has three days, starting Monday, to act on the motions filed by the two aspirants.

Issues vs Mislatel

Meanwhile, two issues have been raised against Mislatel which, if proven true, could impact the Udenna-China Telecom team’s quest to become the country’s new major telco player.

Publicly listed Chelsea Logistics Holdings Corp., a member of the consortium declared as the provisional new major player on Wednesday, refuted yesterday the claim of an infrastructure think tank questioning the congressional franchise of consortium member Mislatel.

“We wish to clarify that prior to the selection process for the third telco, the NTC published a list of telecommunications entities with existing legislative franchises. (Mislatel) was included in the list,” Chelsea Logistics said.

The company was referring to NTC’s list of public telecommunications entities with nationwide coverage, which showed that Mislatel has an operational franchise approved on April 19, 1998 and will expire in 2023.

“In addition, the NTC has accepted the validity of the Mislatel franchise when it vetted Mislatel’s documents during the selection process,” Chelsea said.

Infrawatch PH on Thursday said Mislatel has no franchise and thus should be stripped of its newly won entitlement as challenger to the so-called “duopoly” in the local telecommunications sector.

Infrawatch claimed that the congressional franchise granted to Mislatel in 1998 had been automatically revoked for the group’s failure to list in the stock market, a condition set for the granting of franchise.

NTC officials sought for comment did not respond. Rio, for his part, said it is now up to Udenna to defend Mislatel.

“As far as we’re concerned, we took their bid on face value. But that is why this is still subject to post-qualification,” Rio said.

Singson’s LCS Group of Companies and TierOne vowed to file a case against Mislatel for alleged breach of contract. – With Jess Diaz