Digitel's Refund TROed By The Court Of Appeals

The Court of Appeals (CA) temporarily issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on a government order for Digitel Mobile Philippines Inc. to refund subcribers at least P7 billion ($159.63 million*) in alleged excessive charges.

The court granted Digitel's motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against a National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) decision ordering the refund in an August 20, 2014 resolution.

Digitel is another mobile network carrier of Philippine Long Distance Company (PLDT) after it acquired 98% of its share on JG Summit Holdings in a series of deal.

However, in leu of the refund, the court had directed Digitel to post a cash bond or surety bond of P500,000.

What's the ground of the court of appeals to issue a temporary restraining order in favor the the telecommunication giant?

The court of appeals said that the temporary stoppage of the refund was granted because Digitel argued that its petition is anchored on whether NTC Memorandum Circular (MC) No. 02-10-2011 is limited only to interconnection charges and excludes retail prices on regular short message service (SMS).

The seven billion pending refund is indeed very surprising especially when consumer all felt that Sun Cellular is the most cheapest mobile network in the country with their super-tipid promos. That is why it is very hard to believe that the court still found an over charging issue against them.

Anyway, if the court's computation is correct for the over charging, as a consumer, keywordspeak.com hopes that these authorities that are deciding this case would be fair enough to come to a decision that would be reasonable for all parties.

Confirmed reports said that Smart and Globe are also facing the same overcharge issue against their subscribers.