TXTPower welcomes the calls by the DOTC secretary and several members of Congress, for the removal of text messaging charges.

At the moment, we hope the DOTC secretary has ordered his staff to calculate how much the telcos owe consumers since they started charging for text messaging. All these illegal charges must be refunded. The refunds should also cover the VAT illegally levied on text messaging, not just the illegal telco charges.

The NTC and the BIR should work together to find out how much the telcos and the government owe the consumers and to find out the quickest and most fair way of undertaking a refund.

We have long argued that text messaging is a built-in service of the GSM standard used by telcos and should thus be provided for free but government refuses to listen. We are thus surprised by the sudden turn around of the DOTC secretary and members of Congress. We expect them to uphold the law regarding franchises and to correct their oversight that allowed the telcos to fleece consumers up to now.

We are prepared to face the telcos, the NTC and the BIR before any forum because we have long waited for this chance to expose the highway robbery on consumers: the mislabeling of text messaging as a value-added service, the NTC’s assent, the illegal charging and the illegal slapping of VAT and the long silence over these by the government.

We have friends who are experts in the fields of mobile telephony and electronics and communications engineering who back us up and would surely sound advice to the DOTC secretary and Congress on the technological basis for removing text messaging charges.