SEN. Loren Legarda has filed a bill seeking to lower regular prepaid call and text rates and make paid regular load non-expiring.
The bill also aims to strengthen consumer protections against unexpected deductions and unclear promo pricing.
The proposed Sulit Load Act would require the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), together with the Department of Information and Communications Technology,
Department of Trade and Industry and Philippine Competition Commission, to review and rationalize regular prepaid rates for SMS, mobile calls, data and mobile-to-landline calls.
Pending the completion of that review, the bill proposes interim maximum default rates of P0.50 per SMS, P2 per minute for ordinary domestic mobile calls, and P3 per minute for mobile-to-landline calls.
Legarda said the reform was long overdue because regular load should not function as an expensive fallback whenever a subscriber forgets to register for a promo, exhausts an allocation, loses internet access, or needs to make an urgent call.
“If they can offer very cheap calls, texts, and data through various promos, there should also be reasonable rates for regular usage. A subscriber shouldn’t be penalized simply because their promo has run out or they need to make an urgent call,” she said.
The measure would also require telecommunications companies to provide clearer pricing information for prepaid promos, including the effective cost per gigabyte of data, call minute, SMS and landline call minute, along with the total price, validity period, restrictions and treatment of unused allocations.
Legarda said consumers should not have to navigate complicated promo names and inclusions simply to determine which offer provides better value.
“When we buy rice, gasoline, or other products, there are prices and measurements that we can compare. It should be the same with mobile load. It should be easy to see how much we’re actually paying per GB, per minute of calls, or per text,” she said.
The Sulit Load Act would make paid regular prepaid load non-expiring while the subscriber’s account remains active, and would prohibit unjust forfeiture or deletion of prepaid value already purchased by the consumer.
The proposed law will also address the high cost of calling landlines and essential service numbers, particularly those used by banks, hospitals, schools, utilities, airlines, government offices, and customer service centers.
The measure would further require free balance and usage monitoring, timely notices before subscribers begin incurring out-of-promo charges, safeguards against accidental mobile data deductions, and accessible mechanisms for refunds or restoration of load that was improperly charged.
“This kind of protection is long overdue. The telecommunications industry has developed rapidly, and consumers should also feel the benefits through fairer prices, greater transparency, and better treatment of the load they have paid for,” Legarda said.
