MANILA – A party-list lawmaker has denounced the overcharging by telecommunications companies on text messaging rates despite the presence of directives from the Office of the President and the National Telecommunications Commission aimed at making text messaging more affordable to the public.

Rep. Bernadette Herrera-Dy (Party-list, Bagong Henerasyon) in a press release from Congress urged the House Committee on Information and Communications Technology to conduct an inquiry on the issue to protect the subscribers.

Herrera-Dy, author of House Resolution 2904, said that the NTC has issued a directive in November 2012 ordering the nation’s top three telecommunications companies to refund million of subscribers after finding out that firms have been overcharging their customers on off-net text messages.

Quoting the NTC, Herrera-Dy also said the telcos had defied Memorandum Circular No. 02-10-2011 or the “Interconnection Charge for Short Messaging Service,” which took effect on Dec. 1, 2011 and ordered the reduction of text messaging rates from P1 to 80 centavos for each text, due to reduction of interconnection charges from 35 centavos to 15 centavos.*

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