Opting Out

Part of my job as an executive assistant was to answer letters, make speeches and the occasional joke. Until one day my boss asked if I knew anything about cellphones and of course I said yes.

While working at the National Telecommunications Commission I learned how the telecoms industry was being regulated or deregulated. They were always taking fire from the Senate for whatever problem was plaguing the consumer at the time, and at that time, there were the "push messages."

A push message is generated by the telecom's server. It comes in the form of a text message urging the subscriber to avail of the most recent ringtones and such. This is part of their right as the network the telecoms said but according to a Senator bothered by such messages at three in the morning, these texts intrude upon the privacy of the individual.

So, the NTC was faced with a policy dilemma, whether to recognize the right of the telecoms to send whatever it is they wished to send to subscriber, who may not necessarily be a Sharon Cuneta fan, the latest ring tone on one hand and on the other hand, the subscriber's right to be texted by people they actually know and not some server which randomly sends texts at unholy hours.

The burden of solving this problem lay upon me, a second year law student who did not know his Administrative Law until that day. So, I came up with two plans, one was to create a Master Exclusion List where subscribers can register so that they would not receive any push messages anymore. The other plan was to create a regime in which all subscribers are opted out unless they opt in.

The compromise was reached after a public hearing, in which I was quoted as the person who came up with these "solutions." The regime to be adopted was an Opted In regime, however, the subscribers are given the choice and more importantly, awareness of this choice to opt out free of charge.

One day, with a new sim card, I was sent a push message and all the annoyance came back to me. I tried to opt out but it did not work. So, I called the customer service to complain and after I said, that it was ironic that they were sending these to me, the person on the other line hung up.

So until now, I still keep on receiving these messages and I remembered what the lawyer of Globe told me as he flung his right arm around my neck, "Pare, we're losing millions because of your Memorandum Circular but don't worry we'll still hire you after you graduate."