MANILA - A consumer group said on Saturday the National Telecommunications Commission's (NTC) recent order extending the shelf life of cellular prepaid credits was not enough to protect consumers from alleged abusive practices of mobile network firms.

Consumer advocacy group TXTPower said the NTC must "do more" than just extend the expiry date of prepaid loads if it really wants to protect the interest of consumers.

Saying that the short validity of loads is the least of consumers' problems, TXTPower said the NTC should exercise its powers to immediately lower the rates of cellular phone calls, text messaging and other mobile phone services. The group added that the regulator should crack down on network and content providers that abuse their licenses by sending millions of spam messages.

"Prepaid load quickly gets lost or stolen because of the high cost of placing cellphone calls. The NTC, unfortunately, has not exercised its powers to reduce rates in favor of the public. All it does is to bless the promotional offerings of telcos that may be pulled out whimsically and capriciously," said TXTPower president Anthony Ian Cruz.

Cruz added: "Senate President [Juan Ponce Enrile] is lucky. He immediately got a refund even without asking for it. But for the rest of us, whose prepaid load are stolen by the millions through high prices, spam and short expiry, we don't have any recourse."

Enrile, together with Sen. Manuel Roxas II, earlier led a Senate inquiry on the alleged disappearance of prepaid credits and illegal charges collected and passed on by telecom firms to their subscribers. Enrile himself complained about "vanishing load" in his prepaid account.

After much pressure from the lawmakers, the NTC released last Friday Memorandum Circular 03-07-2009, which extended the validity period of cellular credits.

The NTC also ordered that unused credits be added to new credits, which will then be the basis for a new validity period.

On top of these, the NTC required all mobile network operators to provide their subscribers call data and account balance records upon request free of charge.

Make 'unlimited calls, texting' permanent

Apart from lowering call and text messaging rates, Cruz said telcos should also make "unlimited calls" and "unlimited texting" as permanent, not promotional, offers.

"The telcos have recovered the old investments on which the current pricing for calls, text and other services had been based. It is about time the NTC and the government compel these telcos to make the public benefit through 'unlimited calls' and 'unlimited texting' which are standard offers of many telcos across the world," he explained.

"This should not prejudice moves towards per-six second charging, which has long been demanded by consumers," he added.

Cruz slammed the NTC for its "false belief that the industry's deregulation means that it has no powers to champion consumer welfare and that it should only support the telcos."

"It is thus no surprise that consumers are left to fend for themselves, so much unlike the Senate President, who has mobilized the power of the Senate and his office to lay bare the issues," he said.

NTC officials earlier told the Senate that their hands are tied by a court injunction issued in 2000 against an NTC order regarding guidelines for telco services, including the sale and use of prepaid cards.

Bring to court

Leon Dulce, spokesperson of TXTPower, expressed concern that telecom companies might employ "tactics" to prevent the implementation of the NTC's new rules on prepaid validity.

"They did that the last time. They appealed (an NTC order) with the courts," she said.

Although the NTC's recent order has yet to take effect, one mobile phone operator, Sun Cellular, is already contesting this, saying the extension of the expiration of prepaid loads will not only eat into their capacity but also increase their costs because it will require a system upgrade.

"Hindi naman kasi libre mga ganitong development (this new development will not come for free). Kailangan namin tingnan kung 'di ganung kalaki yung costs para 'di na kailangang ipasa sa tao (we have to see whether the costs will be minimal so we don't need to pass these on to consumers)," said Bill Pamintuan, Sun Cellular's senior vice president for legal affairs. - With a report from Zen Hernandez, ABS-CBN News