I AM not a fan of Enrile neither do I want to do an Enrile here but I like the exposé Enrile gave in the Senate on Globe Telecom’s downloading his ring tones. I have a similar experience with our telephone company Bayan Tel. Some years ago I decided to get a landline connection from Bayan Tel, after the telephone services of Misortel company were discontinued in our subdivision due to the fact that the telephone wires were repeatedly stolen.

I did like the services of Bayan Tel until I discovered in my billing that I was charged for missed calls, similar to those ring tones of Enrile from Globe Telecom. The amount of P 6.25 appeared there in the list many times and this turned out to be a charge for every missed call. I thought this is highly unusual for a telephone company, to charge you for calls that were never made.

When I complained to the company they acknowledged their mistake and told me that I could deduct the charges from my bill. However, every month again the charges were repeated in my billing and the deducted amount of the previous month re-appeared as my debit. The billing come from the main office in Manila and apparently the local office couldn’t do much about it, I was told. Finally I decided to have my telephone line disconnected.

I believe there is something wrong in the telephone system which is all electronic and automatically records even missed calls. In the same way, Enrile was charged for ring tones in his cell phone. Enrile scolded the NTC commissioner for this abuse and even told him: ‘I would kick you out if I were the president’. I said already above I won’t do an Enrile here, but I would like to call the attention of our City Government to look into this anomaly of Bayan Tel.

I don’t want to file an official complaint against the company because I have settled already this issue with them by disconnecting the line. But for the sake of the common good the City Council could find here another issue they can quarrel about in their council meetings while the Vice-Mayor is absent. If the company cannot correct this failure in their system, I think their franchise should be recalled.

No telephone company in the whole world will charge you for missed calls; only in the Philippines! (For your comments e-mail: arnvv@yahoo.com)