The proposed 5-centavo tax on text messages sent by mobile phone users in the Philippines is counterproductive, executives of Globe Telecom stressed on Thursday.  

They said the proposed tax, which Congress is pushing to fund the government's health care and educational programs, may not be relevant now because of the prevalence of unlimited text and call promotions offered by telcos.

Globe president and chief executive officer Ernest Cu said the text tax would only lessen Globe's ability to provide more affordable services to consumers such as unlimited texting. Cu stressed that the tax would discourage many subscribers from sending text messages, the most widely used form of wireless communication in the country.

"At the end of the day, Globe is a business. When these types of taxation occur, the weight is on the consumer," company President and CEO Ernest Cu said at the sidelines of Globe's annual stockholders' meeting in Makati City.

Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez, who also heads the oversight committee in the Lower House, revived the proposal to impose a "text tax" on an estimated 2 billion texts sent daily to help fund the government's social services programs. The initiative was eventually revised to a 5-centavo tax per SMS.

Sen. Richard Gordon has proposed Senate Bill 2402 last year, which seeks to create the Health and Education Acceleration Program (HEAP) Corporation. The HEAP Corp., he said, will facilitate the improvement of education and health care industries in over 43,000 public schools nationwide.

Globe said it has recognized the program's good intentions. However, the company cited that it has already paid the government P61 billion last year, higher than the P51 billion it provides its shareholders in terms of dividends.

"The government seems to feel that their share [of the company's dividends] is still not enough," Cu said.

Instead of imposing more taxes on text messaging, Globe said the government should work on balancing their objectives, particularly between making services (such as SMS) more affordable to consumers and delivering public needs through infrastructure and other social programs.

"Giving initiatives to telcos can contribute to nation-building as well. If you keep on limiting abilities to earn, that would be detrimental to the nation," said Ferdinand dela Cruz, head of Globe's consumer wireless business group.