The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on Monday reported exceeding its 2023 collection target by 62 percent to P3.5 billion, way more than the P5.91 billion target set by the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC).
The agency during the year generated revenue collection totaling P9.43 billion instead and traced this development to the strict enforcement and remittance of spectrum use and regulation of fees (SUF) and penalties.
NTC regulates cable and commercial television operators, broadcast radio stations, telecommunications companies and commercial and portable radio operators.
In 2018 when the Philippines first transited from 3G then 4G and the then trending 5G mobile telecommunications broadcast, the regulator wisely imposed stiff penalties on the inefficient use of user spectrum. Radio frequency bands that were hardly used or none at all were slapped with heavy fines and made available to telecommunications companies that can.
“The NTC’s systematic collection effort is the agency’s modest way of contributing to the public service programs of our dear President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. – priorities of which are on food security, free and universal primary education, and public health,” NTC Commissioner Ella Blanca Lopez said.
