In a statement, Philippine integrated telco PLDT said it welcomes DITO Telecommunity Corp.’s (DITO) “declared openness to amicably settle its unpaid contractual obligation … of P430 million for services that PLDT continues to deliver so that DITO can in turn provide telco services to its subscribers.”
Earlier this month, PLDT revealed that the Dennis Uy-led new telco has yet to pay for the services rendered to them, which include “building and provisioning of transmission facilities that DITO is currently using for the delivery of telecommunication services to its subscribers.”
DITO has until Nov. 4, 2022 to pay what it owes PLDT “otherwise PLDT will exercise all of its rights under law and contract to protect its interests, including suspension or termination of the parties’ service agreement.”
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PLDT agreed to build and lease the transmission facilities to DITO, while also providing interconnection services to benefit both DITO’s and PLDT’s own subscribers.
“PLDT built, delivered, and leased the transmission facilities for DITO on schedule, while DITO repeatedly delayed in paying PLDT the contracted milestone payments for the facilities in the hundreds of millions of pesos,” PLDT said in earlier statements.
PLDT has finished the transmission facilities and DITO continues to use the facilities to provide services to its subscribers.
“But DITO has now refused to pay the final Php430 million balance it owes PLDT for building the facilities,” the Manny V. Pangilinan-led telco said. “Instead of paying, DITO has responded to PLDT’s mandatory PSE and SEC disclosures about DITO’s material nonpayment by trying to confuse the public and referring to and mischaracterizing the issues involving DITO’s other unpaid obligations to SMART Communications Inc. (SMART), a separate company with a different agreement with DITO.”
PLDT said DITO should stop its claims “that PLDT’s efforts to collect on DITO’s debt is somehow an anticompetitive activity or interconnection issue.”