Dealers oppose new Smart e-load system

By LENIE LECTURA/Business Mirror.com | Smart Communications Inc. is implementing a new distribution model for its electronic load (e-load) system, a move which has caught the ire of a group of dealers who claim that this will put them out of business.
The Telco Entrepreneurs Association Inc., said in several letters sent to Smart president Napoleon Nazareno that the regionalization project is “killing the livelihood of many of your dealers nationwide.”
“After so many years of giving our full support and hard work to expand and grow your e-load business, Smart has now abandoned us by arbitrarily and effectively ending the business of thousands of your dealers, and worse, without even informing us of our impending demise,” said Telco president Robert Galon and secretary Martin Acha.
Smart said the subdealers are part of the cellular firm’s previous major distributors and dealers, the entities with whom Smart contracts for the marketing and distribution of its products and services. The subdealers then sell the e-load to retailers who service the end-consumers.
“It is not true that the subdealers are being eliminated,” said Smart head for legal and regulatory department Enrico Espanol.
He explained that the subdealers are complaining of the implementation of Smart’s new distribution model as they are now required to get e-load exclusively from the provincial distributor with whom they are registered.
These provincial or regional distributors are the ones that now directly transact with retailers. The affected subdealers can opt to become sales agents, regional or provincial distributors.
The catch, however, is that if absorbed by Smart, the subdealers can no longer be allowed to do business with other cellular providers. “In other words, we can’t service other cellular operators. For those who do not want to service Smart exclusively, they would risk losing P10,000 a month,” added Galon.
The group’s concern was already aired to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). But Smart said Telcos’ complaint is beyond the jurisdiction of the NTC as it pertains to the exercise by Smart of its business prerogative on matters involving the conduct of its sales operations.
Smart also pointed out that the members of Telco are not invoking the jurisdiction of the NTC as subscribers or consumers, but as a group of businessmen or subdealers.
“Based on these circumstances, the NTC has no jurisdiction over the subject complaint as it does not involve either a consumer complaint on the quality of telecommunications services and the rates, and/or a competitor complaint on interconnection or unfair competition,” stressed the Smart lawyer.
Meanwhile, consumer advocate group TXTPower urged the Senate and House of Representatives to look into this matter.
“Both the NTC and the Department of Trade and Industry have told Smart electronic load dealers that they do not have jurisdiction over their predicament, and so Congress must step in to fill the void, rescue these dealers from certain bankruptcy and exercise their oversight functions on the franchises granted to Smart and parent company PLDT,” Anthony Ian Cruz, TXTPower president said.