Let’s take a quick look at the company and personalities behind the sole surviving bidder for the third telco

After plenty of interest, bids and rumors, only one organization has passed through the initial bidding process of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT). The Mislatel Consortium is the sole survivor that will now go through the DICT’s Detailed Evaluation of the First Submission Package, and as the lone competitor, it’s very likely that they will become our next telco.

The Mislatel group is comprised of four companies: Mindanao Islamic Telephone Company, Udenna Corp, Chelsea Logistics Corp, and China Telecom.

The Mindanao Islamic Telephone Company was granted a franchise by Congress on April 19, 1998. Not much is known about the company in public, as there are very few resources we could dig up that references their operations.

The Udenna Corporation is a holding company incorporated in 2002 and is based in Davao, Philippines. It operates through its subsidiaries, offering trading and distribution of refined petroleum products.

Chelsea Logistics Holdings Corp. meanwhile, offers logistics and transport services to many ports in the Philippines, specializing in shipping, handling, loading, transport, and discharge of petroleum products and other goods.

Both the Udenna Corporation and Chelsea Logistics Holdings Corp. are owned by Dennis Uy, a Davao-based entrepreneur who is reportedly close to President Rodrigo Duterte, and donated around Php 30 million to his presidential campaign in 2016.

China Telecom is a state-owned telecommunications firm, and is the largest fixed-line service and third-largest mobile telecommunications provider in China. The company currently has 215 million mobile subscribers, 123 million broadband subscribers, and 127 million access lines as of end-2016.

Technically, the fight isn’t over: the two other disqualified groups, specifically SEAR Telecom groups Mindanao-based TierOne Communications, the Luis Chavit Singson Group of Companies, Cambodia’s Southeast Asia Telecom, Singapore’s Miller Pte Ltd., and China’s Fujian Torch Electron Tech, and PT&T said that they will file an appeal with the National Telecommunications Commission in regards to their disqualification in the bidding as the next major telco player.