I cannot count how many times I’ve written articles or posted on social media about issues with products/services that were not acted upon by government officials or companies. This sad realization dawned on me while I was writing the editorial article on the controversial Fair Use Policy entitled “NTC Should Set Standards for the Use of “Unlimited” by Telcos in Their Ads”. I knew that left to just a blog post, nothing would happen. It was time to take things to the next level especially since we just couldn’t ignore the overwhelming response from our readers about the issue. We put together an official complaint letter, drove to the Senate, and gave it to the Senator who filed the Crowdsourcing Bill of the Philippines, Senator TG Guingona. He was kind enough to receive it personally and we even took a picture with him while holding the letter, hehe! In the complaint we basically fleshed out all the points we had in our editorial piece, including how the terms “Unlimited” and “Unli” were very deceiving given the Fair Use Policy. We also underscored the need for telcos to be more transparent and offer alternatives/solutions to users affected by the policy who were still locked in contract.

Next up we’re heading to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) this Friday to submit the complaint as well.

How You Can Help

Other than just complaining, we want the system to work for us with regards to this issue. Having said that, there are two ways you can help:

1. Post on Senator TG Guingona’s Facebook Page (you can write on his wall) encouraging him to do a speech on the Senate floor about this issue or for him to talk to the NTC to intervene and act.

2. File a complaint on the NTC website via their contact page here.

There’s one phrase that comes to mind that sums up what I want to tell you guys about this issue. Gets niyo to kasi Pinoy kayo, hehe. And that phrase is:

Push natin ‘to.

We’ll keep everyone posted. Cheers!