Props to Atty. Wilson
Gamboa; the man recently blew the whistle on the fact that the Indonesians are
the real guys in charge over at PLDT.
It’s sickening for me, being a Filipino, to know that the largest
telecommunications provider in the country is now owned by foreigners despite a
constitutional mandate barring non-Pinoys from owning and/or holding
controlling interest in public utility providers.
It was the
Salims who bought out the government’s holdings in the Philippine Telecommunications
Investment Corporation (PTIC) – and buying these particular shares gave them a
firm hold on PLDT, pushing their ownership share to over 50%. Heck, that’s damned unconstitutional! But,
rather than ditch their foreign masters, those wily folks at PLDT did a
workaround and used using its employees’ Beneficial Trust Fund (BTF) to create
a shell company – BTF Holdings Inc. – which they endowed with 150 million voting shares. So, yeah: on paper, it looks like Filipinos
have retaken PLDT – on paper.
PLDT is
obviously abusing its employees’
pension fund and using it as a shield behind which they can hide and do their
dirty work. And for what? So that the Salims – whoever they are – can
lord it over the Filipino people by putting their money-grubbing hands on our
phone networks and media outfits? They’d
better do some thinking; I don’t think the Supreme Court will let them off a
second time.
