RJ Jacinto, Globe’s Froilan Castelo ‘clash’ over common tower policy

Sparks flew between Globe Telecom’s legal counsel Froilan Castelo and Presidential Adviser on Economic Affairs and Information and Communications Technology Ramon Jacinto during the public consultation on common tower policy Thursday.

Castelo and Jacinto engaged each other in clash of words over the issue of having only “independent” tower companies during the open forum on the draft policy, rules, and regulations on the Common and Shared Infrastructure in the Public Telecommunications Market.

Castelo raised concerns about having a tower company independent of the telcos.

“We do not see how an independent tower company can alleviate or ease out the problems that we are fixing. They are private companies, the same as us, and they are going to face the same problems,” Globe’s chief lawyer said.

Under the draft policy, tower companies are independent of mobile network operators and the telcos must not own any equity in the tower firms to promote tower sharing, non-discriminatory access, uniformity, and transparency in the leasing arrangements.

Globe has secured in August an approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to set up its own company that will build telecommunications towers. 

“We do not see any reason how this will help us ... We also have to remain focused on the objective of creating more cell sites. If we are going to make this exclusive, we do not know and we do not see how this will speed up the roll out,” Castelo said.

In response, Jacinto told Castelo that Globe and PLDT-Smart already lost their “moral ascendancy” to build their own towers.

“That’s the very reason why you cannot provide the service to the public, and now you say you can,” Jacinto noted.

By establishing the independent nature of tower companies from the telecom service providers is the governments way of protecting them, the presidential adviser said.

“What bank will finance a common tower company if we say anybody can build a tower? It will not be viable, you have to nurture the independent tower company,” he added.

The proposed common tower policy allows telcos to build their own towers if the independent tower companies reject their request to build in a certain location or do not respond within 30 days. 

But Castelo insisted that telcos have the right to construct their own infrastructure as specified in their Congressional franchise.

“Preventing us from doing that is a violation of our contract and of the Constitution,” the lawyer said.

But Jacinto is holding Globe and Smart to their word that they are willing to cooperate with the common tower scheme.

“Magprangkahan tayo, ‘wag niyo sabihin na papayag kayo tapos iipitin niyo kami ... And you will invoke your right in your franchise.”

Castelo then clarified that Globe is not against having shared facilities with other telcos, but is mainly concerned about retaining the right to build their own infrastructure.

“Tower sharing is okay. We don’t disagree with that. What we only disagree with is the independent tower company, which will be exclusive in doing this,” Castelo added.

The Duterte administration is pushing for a common tower policy to solve the issues hounding the telecommunications services.

The Philippines lags behind neighboring countries in terms of the number of existing cell site towers, having only 16,000 compared with Malaysia and Indonesia’s 25,000 and 90,000 towers, respectively, according to the Department of Information and Communications Technology.

DICT Acting Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr. said during the public consultation on Thursday that the common tower policy will free up the telcos from tower-building since they can lease the facilities built by a tower company.

Such an arrangement could potentially reduce prices of telecommunications service in the country, Rio noted. —VDS, GMA News