MANILA, Philippines – The two disqualified bidders for the 3rd major telecommunications player slot filed their respective appeals before the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on Friday, November 9.

The Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (PT&T) filed a motion for reconsideration, asking the NTC for a certification of technical capability.

The certification requires the bidder to have operated on a national scale for at least 10 years.

The NTC previously said PT&T was not qualified for such a certification, and thus not qualified to participate in the 3rd telco bid.

But PT&T argued that it has over 50 years of experience in the telco space.

Singson vs Uy, China Telecom

Meanwhile, the Chavit Singson-TierOne Communications consortium, which is called Sear Telecom, also filed two motions for reconsideration before the NTC.

Singson and his legal team personally submitted the complaints.

The first motion questions the conferment of the provisional 3rd major telco player status to the Mindanao Islamic Telephone (Mislatel) Consortium. The winning team is led by Dennis Uy’s Udenna Corporation and China Telecom.

They were able to qualify for the bid through Mislatel’s telco franchise.

But Sear Telecom’s lawyer argued that Mislatel misrepresented itself as it has an exclusive contract with Digiphil, a subsidiary of TierOne.

“Mislatel’s submitted bidding agreement is a total falsity tainted with contractual fraud and misrepresentation,” the complaint reads.

Singson added that Sear Telecom paid some P194,000 in delinquent fees of Mislatel to be able to get a certificate of non-liability, another requirement to join the bidding.

“Mislatel misled the public,” Singson said.

The second motion questions Sear Telecom’s disqualification from the bidding. It had been disqualified for being unable to submit the P700-million participation security before the selection committee.

Sear Telecom said it has issues with the provision concerning the participation security, so it opted not to submit that requirement on the day of the bidding. – Rappler.com