A concern forwarded by Globe Telecom

Our special presentation on tonight’s Talkshow on Straight from the Sky is a discussion on Understanding Nuclear Science and Radiation. Mind you, this is not an easy topic to discuss as it is highly technical and quite difficult to bring down to a layman’s level. Hence I asked Bro. Rommel “Mel” Bacabac of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD), a PhD degree holder and group head of the Medical Biophysics Group of the Department of Physics at the University of San Carlos (USC) to help us make this a bit understandable.

When Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear plant was affected by the March 11 earthquake (actually, it survived the earthquake, but was struck by the tsunami), it caused the nuclear plant to explode due to excessive heat and the ripple effect was nuclear radiation. So watch this interesting show with Bro. Mel so we can learn whether the fallout from the radiation could affect us. Watch this show on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00PM tonight. Replays on Wednesday and Saturdays same time.

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Last Friday noon, top officials of Globe Telecom called a presscon at the Ching Palace with members of the Visayas media in order to clarify certain issues affecting this telecommunications company. My good friend, Atty. Rodolfo Salalima, Globe’s Legal Consultant whom I have already had as guest on my talkshow gave us a full account of the ripple effect on the deal where the Philippine Long Distance and Telephone Company (PLDT) acquired controlling shares in the Gokongwei or JG Summit owned Digitel Telecommunications. Globe’s official stand on this issue is, “They are not against the merger, but are scared of the consequences of the PLDT/Digitel deal. Hence we asked him, why should we be scared of this deal?

Atty. Salalima reminded the Visayan reporters that PLDT once was a monopoly in the telecommunications industry until then Pres. Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) ordered then Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Sec. Jesus “Sonny” Garcia, Jr. to deregulate the Telecoms Industry. Indeed, when the Cory Presidency ushered in during the EDSA Revolt, she never initiated reforms in the Telecom Industry, after all, PLDT was under the hands of a Cojuangco and Tita Cory is a Cojuangco married to an Aquino. So PLDT, even after Marcos, retained its status as a monopoly until the time of FVR.

When I was Chairman of the Regional Development Council’s Infrastructure and Utilities Committee (RDC-IUC), I learned that way back in 1994, there were only 40,000 land lines in the entire island of Cebu. I really thought that there were hundreds of thousands. This is why then Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew joked “In the Philippines 95% of the population are waiting for a phone, while the remaining 5% are waiting for a dial tone.” It was funny, but for FVR it wasn’t funny at all.

But since the telecoms industry was opened to competition, the Philippines leap forged the technology divide. Today, Atty. Salalima says there are 83 million subscribers industry wide and the land line subscribers are already six million strong. Thanks to Rep. Act. No. 7925 authored by Sen. John “Sonny” Osmeña. Indeed, how times have changed and there is no doubt competition drives prices downwards. Just take a good look at the airline industry today with the entry of Cebu Pacific Air (CPA), which has allowed Filipinos to enjoy flying to local tourism destinations in prices that they could never enjoy when PAL was still a monopoly.

I agree with Atty. Salalima that this is indeed a serious concern, more so that we do not have anti-trust laws in this country. I also learned that this will be debated on the Senate floor today. So let’s check out the arguments for or against this highly controversial deal and comment on this later.

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The position of Ombudsman vacated by Merceditas Gutierrez was first offered to former Defense Secretary Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro, Jr., who rightfully politely declined the offer (because he would be perceived as a deodorant of the Aquino administration). Then it was given on a silver platter to Department of Justice (DoJ) Secretary Leila De Lima, who also politely declined the offer, perhaps because she knew that doing so would have opened the way for Executive Sec. Paquito Ochoa to replace her so that the running mate of Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III, former Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas, would become the next Executive Secretary.

Since no one is making moves, it seems that Mar Roxas is headed as the next Chief of Staff for the Aquino administration, a position that many pundits say would cause a rift between him and Executive Sec. Ochoa. Indeed, Roxas was a major partner in the candidacy of Pres. PNoy; hence we strongly believe that he won’t be taking orders from the Executive Secretary. This means we’ll see more exciting stories emanating from Malacanang.

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