THE Senate Committee on Trade, Commerce and Entrepreneurship will endorse for plenary approval legislation that will institutionalize consumer protections against fees charged on the issuance of paper bills.
The panel, led by Senator Aquilino L. Pimentel III, tackled Senate Bill No. 779, which introduces a new provision in Republic Act No. 7394, or the Consumer Act of the Philippines.
Section 1 of the bill specifies that billing statements may be printed or sent in an electronic form “at the option of, and without any additional cost, to consumers.”
At present, government agencies have issued a joint administrative order addressing consumer complaints on telecommunication services, and a memorandum circular, banning extra charges on e-billing.
“We came up with joint administrative order 18-01 s. 2018 and then NPC (National Privacy Commission) subsequently issued a separate memorandum circular, some time in March this year, prohibiting telcos from charging a fee for paper bills,” Trade Undersecretary for Consumer Protection Ruth B. Castelo said during the hearing.
The Energy Regulatory Commission, for its part, issued Resolution No. 8, s. 2017 that allowed consumers to receive electronic bills or paper bills free of charge.
“This actually paved way for giving electricity consumers the option to receive e-bills and other electronic communication in lieu of paper bills, but this one is supposedly for free,” ERC Office of the General Counsel lawyer Arjay Louie B. Cuanan told the panel.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said its regulations do not explicitly state that service providers cannot impose charges on certain billing options.
In the same hearing, Mr. Pimentel raised concerns over pre-approved credit cards that subjects consumers to penalties.
“‘Yung tao ba who did not know that he or she has a credit card and did not pay, and has incurred penalties, ‘yung delinquency ba n’ya is now reported to this credit information bureau? (For any person who did not know he or she has a credit cars and has incurred penalties, are the delinquencies now reported to credit information bureaus?)” Mr. Pimentel asked BSP Director Pia Bernadette R. Tayag.
The BSP said it has banned such schemes and imposed penalties on such banks, but noted it is still receiving complaints.
“The idea is to be reported but then it will be corrected,” she said. “Our penalty framework is dependent on what the institution did and the penalty is beyond the fine related to what was the shortcoming of the supervised institution. It could go beyond just penalties.”
The Philippine Retailers Association proposed to establish a single code that will cover all consumer concerns, instead of amending the decades-old Consumer Act of the Philippines, a proposal supported by the Department of Trade and Industry.
“I think it’s really high time to overhaul the Consumer Act, to put in all these proposed amendments into one code, since the Consumer Act was enacted 20 years ago,” PRA Chairman Paul A. Santos said.
“Maybe changes occurred in the regulatory environment and a lot of them have to do with even more agencies and government dealings with consumer regulatory matters. In the old Law, we only five departments that dealt with consumer matters, but today you have agencies such as the NPC and the BSP.” — Charmaine A. Tadalan
