Imposing tax and a fixed charge on text messaging will only make the service more expensive for Filipinos, Globe Telecom Inc. said Wednesday.

In a position paper submitted to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), Globe chief legal counsel and senior adviser Rodolfo Salalima slammed Quezon province Rep. Danilo Suarez's contentious proposal to impose a P0.05 tax and P0.50 fixed fee on short message service (SMS) or text.

Suarez explained that doing so would only increase the current cost of text messaging in the country.

Citing Globe's bucket-priced promos, Salalima said each text message costs as low as P0.16, over three times lower than what Suarez was suggesting.

"Clearly, Congressman Suarez now proposes that the current cost of text, which is less than P0.50 per text, be upped more than three times to P0.50," he said.

Suarez, who also heads the oversight committee in the Lower House, was proposing a fixed charge on text messages on the assumption that telco firms charge consumers P1 per text.

He also revived the proposal to slap a tax on the estimated 2 billion SMS sent daily to help raise fund for the government's social services programs.

But Salalima argued the text tax will not be applicable to approximately 25 percent of total messages sent by Globe subscribers since these messages are rendered free by the company's bucket-priced promos such as unlimited texting.

"As stated, when certain texts are already given to the consuming public free or zero rated, how do you and why must you now impose the P0.05 centavos tax per text on a text which is free?" he said.

Of the remaining 75 percent of the total text messages sent by Globe users, Salalima said majority or 88 percent cost an average P0.23 per SMS. Given this rate, he said Globe only gets to earn a net income of P0.02 for every message.

Should the proposal to impose a P0.05-tax push through, Salalima said Globe would incur a loss of P0.03 per text. He said this will force the company to stop its bucket-priced promos to prevent more losses, which in turn, will lead to higher texting costs for consumers.

"Given the above two situations, the telcos have no recourse but to pass on this P0.05-tax on text to the consumers not as a tax but as a cost of production, which in turn will adversely affect the mass public in the form of higher prices of cellular text, cellular calls, and other telecom services," Salalima explained.

"The various promos of the telcos given to the consumers in terms of unlimited texts or zero texts, brought about by free competition as encouraged by RA 7925, will surely come to a stop and withdrawn, all because of the Suarez proposal," he added.

Metering not the solution

Salalima also scored Suarez's proposal to create a metering scheme that will monitor the number of messages sent by subscribers, saying this will only invade mobile users' rights to privacy.

"With all these metering devices outside of the telcos' premises and in the hands of the government functionaries, these private data involving the life and lifestyle of people virtually will become public," he said.

"[It will also be] easy prey to criminal wire tappings," he added.

Instead of metering sent messages, Salalima said the government should monitor the sale of SIM cards and prepaid cards.

Salalima also suggested that the telco industry and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) meet to thresh out problems relative to revenue reporting.

Aside from this, he said the BIR can inspect telcos' accounts as well as those of their printers, suppliers, dealers, and other business partners.

Suarez's proposals only recommendatory

Salalima said Suarez's report containing his SMS-related proposals is merely recommendatory and therefore, cannot impose any legal obligation on Globe and other telecommunication firms.

"Because the report and the recommended proposals therein contained are without any basis whatsoever in law, the recommended proposals cannot create, impose, or enforce any legal obligation, mandatory or obligatory, on the telcos. Nothing flows from nothing," he said.

The Suarez-led House oversight committee crafted the report and asked the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) to order the NTC to draft necessary regulations after public consultations.

However, Salalima said the committee cannot direct the CICT and the NTC to enforce its recommendations as these bodies take orders directly from the Office of the President. He added that the committee's report is not even a resolution, much less a law.

"Congress cannot impose its thinking or inclination and/or enforce the same against administrative or quasi-judicial bodies like the NTC and the CICT, because these bodies take their orders for their executive functionings from the Office of the President. This is separation of power in action," he explained.