Government lawyers asked anew the Court of Appeals (CA) on Monday, April 3, to reconsider its decision that directed the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to approve automatically the application of News and Entertainment Network Corp. (Newsnet) to operate a local multi-point distribution system (LMDS).
In an urgent manifestation, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) asked the CA to take judicial notice of the March 31, 2023 decision by the Office of the President (OP) that dismissed Newsnet’s appeal to reverse a ruling of the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) which nullified the latter’s decision for the automatic grant of Newsnet’s application.
LMDS would enable Newsnet, an affiliate of NOW Corp. and whose legislative franchise had already expired on Aug. 9, 2021, to deliver interactive pay television and multimedia services in the country.
On July 20, 2022, the CA’s special eight division granted Newsnet’s petition against the NTC. The CA decision was written by Associate Justice Perpetua Susana T. Atal-Paño and concurred in by Associate Justices Ruben Reynaldo G. Roxas and Maximo M. De Leon.
The decision directed the NTC to faithfully and immediately comply with ARTA’s Feb. 12, 2020 order which ruled as deemed automatically approved Newsnet’s application for a certificate of public convenience (CPC) or provisional authority (PA) for alleged failure of the NTC to act within the time required by law.
But the OSG told the CA that ARTA had recalled the Declaration of Completeness or its Feb. 12, 2020 order in a resolution dated June 17, 2022, or barely a month before the CA decision came out.
The OSG said the OP’s decision jibes with those issued by ARTA and the Department of Justice (DOJ) which both ruled that applications involving radio frequency assignments is not within the coverage of Republic Act No. 11032, the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018, but is a sole function of the government regulatory body which is the NTC.
“Humbly, with three government agencies – ARTA, the DOJ, and the Office of the President – echoing the same position that: first, ARTA had no jurisdiction over the assignment of frequencies; second, recall of ARTA’s Order dated 12 February 2020 was only proper having been rendered without jurisdiction; and, third, the expiration of petitioner’s franchise rendered its Application moot, respondents reiterate its plea for the Honorable Court to reconsider and set aside its Decision dated 20 July 2022,” the OSG said in the manifestation signed by Solicitor General Menardo I. Guevarra.
“From these events, respondents most respectfully submit, re-plead, yet again, that a writ of mandamus compelling it to comply with the non-existent ARTA’s Order dated 12 February 2020 cannot be issued since ARTA or any other government agency for that matter and even the Honorable Court, cannot arrogate upon themselves this duty to regulate the frequencies — a scarce resource. ARTA cannot supplant NTC’s discretion on determining whether an entity should be granted frequencies and consequently a CPC or PA by ordering an application to be ‘deemed approved’,” the OSG pointed out.