Committee chair Tar- lac Rep. Victor Yap said this was in connection with his proposed “Pre- paid Load Protection Act” which, he noted, “seeks to prohibit the imposition of an expiration period on the validity of prepaid call and text cards; forfeiture of load credits stored on an active prepaid phone account via prepaid call and text card or electronic transfer; and refusal to give a refund to any prepaid subscriber whose load credits were forfeited without any valid cause.”
“In 2016, telco figures showed that there were roughly 128 million mobile phone subscriptions in the country, 95 percent of which are prepaid service users. For the longest time, prepaid load has been an essential commodity for the Filipino people. It is no longer just used for calling and texting but more so for internet browsing and social networking. However, telcos preyed on prepaid load subscribers by setting an expiration for the same. This practice forces subscribers to consume the load or risk of having it expire and be left with nothing. This has to stop,” Yap said.
Yap noted that way back in 2009, the NTC already issued Memorandum Circular 03-07- 2009 imposing a minimum validity period for load credits of prepaid subscribers. However, Yap pointed out that NTC was not able to effectively implement the circular.
“I wish to know what the NTC has done to ensure the protection of prepaid load subscribers. NTC had been remiss. There has been no single case against Telco for the disappearance or illegal expiration of prepaid load. We need the cooperation of the NTC for service innovation. We need the NTC to properly exercise its disciplinary role lest people will suffer,” he said.
Yap also recalled that the DICT, DTI and NTC already issued last December a joint memorandum circular requiring telcos to extend the expiration date of their prepaid loads to one year.
“The memorandum circular was meant to be effective on January 5, 2018 but the telecoms requested that the implementation of the Circular be deferred to June due to some technical issues that they need to address before they can implement the same,” he said, as he expressed objection to the delay.
Yap urged the NTC “to have the political will to compel telcos to expedite the implementation of the order. “The longer this situation drags on, the longer our people will suffer. The NTC must exercise its full authority under the law to ensure its implementation. I’m hopeful that the telcos, with their technical capability will be able to comply with this order at the soonest time possible,” he added.
He also lamented that “certain value-added services are auto- matically being charged by some telcos without the subscribers actually availing of them.”
ICT committee member Rep. Mariano Michael Velarde, Jr of Buhay Partylist said that he himself lost his prepaid load credits without actually using them. “I have continually experienced losing my prepaid load for reasons that are un- clear to me. For example, I get charged for my internet usage even if I was already subscribed to an unlimited data promo,” he added.
