Like food, prepaid load has virtually become a basic commodity for the Pinoy cellphone user. And like food, prepaid loads come with an expiration date and have to be consumed within a certain period.

Because of this, members of the House Committee on Information and Communications Technology (CIT) asked representatives from Smart Communications, Sun Cellular and Globe Telecoms on Wednesday: why should subscribers pay for something they will not be consuming anyway?

"Ito ba ay gatas na napapanis? Kasi ang daming di-na-co-consume na load, magiging wala na, parang nawawala ang pera natin dito," Cavite Rep. Crispin Remulla said.

Globe Telecoms said their system can only accommodate so much, because even if the load remains unused, subscribers would also have to pay for the maintenance of the system.

"Whenever a prepaid network is arrived, it occupies capacity. Just like in a room that is good for 100 persons, it can accommodate only 100 persons. You have to pay the administration in cost," Globe Telecoms Regulatory Affairs head Froilan Castelo said.

"What is rightfully yours will just be the cost of maintenance in the network. Otherwise, ang lugi namin doon, kahit di namin gamitin, babayaran namin which is unfair," Muntinlupa Rep. Ruffy Biazon responded.

NTC unable to intervene

For now, the government is almost unable to intervene, given the deregulated telecom industry.

The National Telecommunications Commission can only take over if the telcos could not agree on the cost of the interconnection charge or the access charge imposed for sending texts or across different service providers.

“You're saying you have authority to intervene if they cannot agree to bring down the rates, but you have no authority to intervene when they collude to raise the rates?” Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. asked.

"On interconnection charges, yes," NTC Director Edgardo Cabarios responded.

“For collusion, okay. But to bring down, you have to regulate them, very good!" Locsin responded.

Free SMS within networks?

If there's no such thing as free text between different networks, Congress is proposing to allow sending SMS within the same network for free, just like how telcos provided for a free texting service during the early days of the cellphone.

But Smart says this is unrealistic now.

"Following the economics of things, if something is given for free, the tendency is it will be abused. [It will lead to] a lot more scam text, fraud text, panloloko, and the network itself might break down given the surge in free texts that will clog the network," said lawyer Roy Ibay, Senior Manager for Regulatory and Telecom Relations for Smart.

Forty percent of the total revenues of the telcos come from SMS. The House committee has asked the telcos to submit their financial statements to see how much of a dent will free texting will cause to the company's profits-if the bill pushes through at all. Willard Cheng, ABS-CBN News