Amending P.D. No. 217 Re: Improvement and Expansion of the Telephone Industry

July 21, 1983

PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NO. 1874

AMENDING CERTAIN PROVISIONS OF PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NO. 217 TO ACCELERATE THE IMPROVEMENT AND EXPANSION OF THE TELEPHONE INDUSTRY IN THE PHILIPPINES

WHEREAS, the improvement and expansion of the telephone industry is necessary to facilitate the development of trade and commerce in the country;

WHEREAS, Presidential Decree No. 217 has adopted the concept of telephone subscriber self-financing as a means to achieve and accomplish this objective;

WHEREAS, there is now an urgent need to adopt a program which would fully and effectively harness the subscriber self-financing plan to accelerate the improvement and expansion of the telephone industry;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution, do hereby order and decree:

 Section 1, paragraph 6 of the Presidential Decree No. 217, is hereby amended to read as follows:

"6. In any subscriber self-financing plan, the amount of subscriber self-financing will, in no case, exceed fifty per centum (50%) of the amount which results from dividing the telephone utility's gross investment in telephone plant in service by its number of primary stations in service, both as reported in the utility's latest audited annual report rendered to the National Telecommunications Commission; Provided, however, that the amount payable by the telephone subscriber may be paid on installment or under such payment arrangement as the National Telecommunications Commission may authorize." cd

 Section 2 of the same Decree is hereby amended to read as follows:

"Sec. 2. The National Telecommunications Commission shall see to it that the herein declared policies are immediately implemented according to its existing rules of procedure, but it may promulgate such separate or independent rules and regulations for the implementation of the aforesaid if, in its exclusive discretion and judgment, consistent with law, it deems such additional rules and regulations to be necessary to carry out fully the provisions of this Decree." cd

 The same Decree is hereby amended by adding the following section immediately after Section 2 thereof:

"Sec. 2-A. The National Telecommunications Commission shall have the power, upon proper notice and hearing in accordance with its rules and regulations, to fix and determine the amounts to be charged as subscriber investment upon the submission of the application for that purpose by the telephone utilities; Provided, however, that the Commission may, in its discretion, approve such amounts subscriber investments as applied for provisionally and without the necessity of a hearing; but it shall call a hearing thereon within thirty (30) days thereafter, upon publication and notice to all parties affected." cd

SECTION 4. All decisions or orders of the National Telecommunications Commission heretofore issued approving subscriber investment plans or revisions thereof, are hereby declared valid and legal in all respects, excepting such decisions or orders as, on the date of this Decree, are pending review by the Supreme Court.

SECTION 5. All laws, executive orders, rules and regulations or parts thereof inconsistent with this Decree are hereby repealed or modified accordingly.

SECTION 6. This Decree shall take effect immediately.

DONE in the City of Manila, this 21st of July, in the year of Our Lord, Nineteen Hundred Eighty-Three.

Published in the Official Gazette, Vol. 79 No. 44 Page 6241 on October 31, 1983.