NEW National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) Regional Director Nelson Cañete will prioritize stricter implementations of its campaigns in the monitoring and lessening the cases of use and trade of unlicensed communication devices.
Cañete, who officially took office on Monday, May 22, said he is going to strictly implement their campaigns against usage of handheld radios as it was also the mandate of President Rodrigo Duterte.
This year the agency will be implementing Oplan Malling, Oplan Sita, and Oplan Window Shopping.
Cañete said they will immediately start with their Oplan Malling wherein representatives from NTC will monitor and check whether the handheld radios used by the mall security guards have NTC stickers on them to ensure that they are registered.
Oplan Sita is the monitoring of the handheld radios used by the taxi drivers and operators also to check whether there are NTC stickers.
“We have campaign against usage of hand-held radios without permits because anything that uses airwaves is the concern of NTC,” Cañete said.
Oplan Window Shopping is a campaign wherein the NTC representatives will check the displays at malls and other gadget-selling establishments in the city to see whether or not they are licensed and with NTC stickers. This way, according to Cañete, they “improve (the) regulation and consumer protection aspect” of their office.
Aside from the guards, taxi drivers and operators, and phone vendors, NTC will also monitor and go after individuals who use handheld radios without necessary permits.
“If you have handset, you should go to NTC to register your unit. And also you, as an individual, should also have the license to use that particular handset as well. So those security agencies come here to apply for the security handsets of their security guards, for example. Same with taxi operators,” said Cañete.
For 2017, NTC-Davao has a target collection of P45 million which would be generated from the registration fees and collection that they will be making for the entire year. Currently, they have reached around P20 million already.
“When we implement these Oplans, this is not to arrest them. We are here to notify and to warn them. But we won’t give a warning before these operations,” he said.
When asked if he has enough people to do these operations in the entire region, Cañete said he plans to assign more people specifically for each province and city in the region in order to properly implement the Oplans.
