That’s when I made the astonishing discovery that Philippine telecommunications/ broadcasting is a male discipline. About a week after I took my oath as concurrent Undersecretary for Communications and NTC chairman, I met with the leaders of the broadcast industry who, though deferential because I was the new NTC chief, were, to my mind, not sold on the idea of having a female lead such an important regulatory body as the NTC.
As we began to discuss the issues and problems of the broadcast industry – and the discussions became rather difficult on a particular legal issue – a very dapper, confident and articulate lawyer started to give his comments on the issue at large. Atty. Fernando Alberto’s reputation had preceded his encounter with me. I was aware that he was a seasoned broadcast industry and telecom lawyer.
Atty. Alberto commenced by saying, "Madam Lichauco, I happen to be a student of law." I guess he must have used the word "student" because, since law is an extremely dynamic discipline, every lawyer ideally should be a continuing student. I found out soon enough that Atty. Alberto is as outspoken as he is sharp. I did not know this at the time but certainly had the fortitude to answer, "Sir, I also am a student of law." Another attendee at the meeting whispered loud enough for me to hear: "And from the Yale Law School, no less."
From then on, mutual respect prevailed whenever he would make an appointment with me to discuss something important. I met his son recently, who introduced himself and told me that he had heard a lot about me from his dad. But I guess Filipino males are like that. They have become so used to seeing women – then unliberated, now liberated but still minimized – that they cannot seem to discard the image of the Filipino macho male.
Whenever we bullishly describe the "Decade of Women in Leadership" megatrend and predict that women will break through to top corporate posts this first decade of the 21st century, our audiences, while enthusiastic, eventually raise this question: "So, why is there still such a bad ratio involved, where men dismally outnumber the women, as far as Fortune’s 500 companies are involved?"
But this is not an article on feminism. The issue just came to mind as I commenced writing this article on e-broadcasting.
Although radio and television broadcasting and the Internet are all communications devices, broadcasting from the global perspective has three characteristics that make it more subject to regulation: a) it has an extensive history of government regulation, although in our country, the broadcast industry has been a self-regulating sector through the umbrella organization called the "Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas" (KBP); b) it uses limited frequencies in order to function which are allocated by the regulatory body; and c) it has an invasive nature for it is generally more accessible than other forms of communications.
The Internet, on the other hand, has been subjected to minimal government regulation, is not an invasive means of communications, for it does not appear on a person’s Internet reception device unbidden, and does not require that very valuable, scarce and finite resource, the radio frequency spectrum, with which to operate. That’s the reason it has always been my hypothesis that the NTC is an extremely powerful regulatory body that allocates the frequency bandwidth that broadcast companies need in order to function.
Jurisdictions who are members of the international telecommunity have enacted broadcast content regulations for a variety of purposes. However, in the determination of what control the government should have over Internet communications and content, in the United States, the Federal Supreme Court adjudicated that the Internet fell outside the traditional broadcasting spectrum and beyond the scope of communications media. The Supreme Court had actually focused on six characteristics of communications media that are not present in Internet broadcasting or e-broadcasting. These are the media’s history of extensive regulation, its pervasiveness, the scarcity of the frequency bandwidth required with which to operate, the ease of access to it by children, warnings and invasiveness.
The court adjudication therefore centered on the fact that the Internet is more similar to telephone communications than to broadcasting and that it requires nothing more than the highest level of free-speech (in the US it’s the First Amendment) protection since it does not share the unique characteristics of the broadcast medium.
In Canada, the regulatory body called the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission) has adjudicated that, although it will not regulate the Internet or e-broadcasting, for that matter, it has the right to do so, applying its regulatory powers according to the type of service. Hence, although text and graphic transmissions consisting of alphanumeric text did not fall under the definition of "broadcasting" found in their Canadian Broadcasting Act, other transmissions such as streaming audio and video webcasts did. It has therefore been the CRTC position that the Internet falls within its regulatory mandate.
Two critical characteristics distinguish the Internet or e-broadcasting from other communications instruments. These are its openness and its decentralization. Its progenitor was designed to be a network that could withstand a nuclear attack. Since there was no central organization required to run or administer it, it would be nearly impossible to destroy.
Canada is not alone in the belief that it can regulate the Internet or e-broadcasting. Singapore believes it has the right. Its SBA (Singapore Broadcasting Authority) instituted a regulatory program designed to control distribution and consumption of the Internet, thereby restricting public access to content it considers offensive to what the SBA pronounced Singapore’s "Asian values."
In the Philippines, as of today, e-broadcasting through the Internet remains unregulated. NTC Deputy Commissioner Jorge Sarmiento, an exceptional public servant if there ever was one, with whom I had a telephone conversation last week, told me that it is safe to state at this point that Internet e-broadcasting is not being regulated by the NTC right now and there are no plans to do so.
I’ve known Jorge for a long time now because he was the former Postmaster General, one of the best guys to supervise when I was Usec for Communications. The Communications sector included and still includes postal mail, which, together with telegraph and telex, could be regarded as sunset or dying industries today.
Iam glad that the NTC has Jorge. This particular regulatory body stands to benefit from his clarity of thought, his ability to analyze and synthesize, and his well-known integrity.
And, of course, right now, everyone who sits in the commission to adjudicate on multi-million (even multi-billion) peso situations, belongs to the male gender. The communications sector leaders remain predominantly male.
There is a need for what we call social change here and it will happen when critical mass occurs. One metaphor for critical mass is an avalanche. Tiny snow crystals move, and it looks like nothing at all is happening, but something may be happening. Millions become billions and then, there’s a turning point and boom! A loud explosion. Critical mass is like an explosion. It is where a trend becomes a megatrend – it is the point when one accepted social paradigm no longer makes sense and is replaced by another.
A woman becomes the president of PLDT and a woman becomes secretary general of the International Telecommunications Union.
This, by the way, is still a dream.