Some congressmen warned that the NTC may face graft charges for if it does not nullify 3G licenses awarded late last year to Smart and three other mobile operators.
According to lawmakers, the NTC did not conduct a bidding process and instead assigned the 3G frequencies to the four operators.
But in a statement, Smart's legal and public affairs department said: "The awarding of 3G licenses has been a transparent process. The NTC came up with that decision after so much deliberation.'
'It's not as if it sprang out of surprise. There were set (of) rules and we simply abided with the process set by the NTC," the statement continued.
Reps. Danilo Suarez (Quezon, 3rd district) and Simeon Kintanar (Cebu, 2nd district), chairpersons of the House of Representatives' committees on oversight and ICT, respectively, are currently preparing a report on the matter.
The NTC was given a 30-day ultimatum to nullify the 3G licenses awarded to four operators.
According to Suarez, Congress did not fail to remind NTC to conduct a bidding on 3G even during the Estrada administration.
"Have they conducted a bidding and they only earned less than a billion, that would have been okay. But the problem is, why did they (NTC) not follow the law's requirement to bid out the frequencies?"
Suarez said in Filipino.
In a previous hearing, the NTC was asked to revise the fee structure for the four operators in acquiring 3G licenses.
The committees proposed an "installment" scheme that would spread out the payment of the fees over a 25-year period, or the lifetime of the authorization of 3G networks. The two committees also recommended that other players be allowed to participate in the bidding
for 3G licenses.
NTC earned P2.3 billion (US$37 million) in the awarding of the four licenses, but lawmakers described this as "minuscule" saying the government could have earned P15 billion to P26 billion more.