THE Supreme Court (SC) was asked to revoke the agreement between major telecommunications providers PLDT Inc./Smart Communications Inc. and Globe Telecom over the controversial 700 megahertz (MHz) broadcast frequency and several sets of telecom frequencies.
In a 48-page petition for mandamus, lawyers Joseph Lemuel Baligod Baquiran and Ferdinand Tecso appealed to the SC justices to issue a writ of mandamus requiring the NTC to revoke the co-use agreement between Globe and PLDT involving the 700 MHz and telco frequencies 2540-2545 MHz, 2580-2595MHz, 2535-2540 and 2565-2580 MHz.
They urged the high court to recall the said frequencies, which were conditionally assigned to them by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), in favor of the state and make the same available to the “best qualified” telecommunication players.
The petitioners also urged the high court to invalidate “co-use agreement” between the two telecommunications providers since the assignment of the 700 MHz broad frequency and the pertinent sets of telecom frequencies to San Miguel Corporation’s (SMC) telecommunications unit — Liberty Broadcasting Network Inc. and now Tori Spectrum Telecom Inc. — and later to Bell Telecommunications Inc., a subsidiary of Vega Telecommunications Inc., was void and illegal.