PLDT

PLDT was established on November 28,1928, by an act of the Philippine legislature and approved by then Governor-General Henry L. Stimson by means of a merger of four telephone companies under operation of the American telephone company GTE. Referred to as Act 3436, the bill granted PLDT a 50-year charter and the ability to begin a Philippine phone network linking major points nationwide. However, PLDT had to meet a 40-day deadline to start employing the network, which would be implemented over a period of one to 4 years.

By the 1930s, PLDT acquired an expansive fixed-line network and the very first time linked the Philippines to the outside world via radiotelephone providers, connecting the Philippines to the United States and other parts of the world.

Telephone service in the Philippines was interrupted due to World War II. After the war, the Philippines’ communications infrastructure was in damages. U.S. military authorities eventually handed over the remains of the communications infrastructure to PLDT in 1947, and with the help of massive U.S. aid to the Philippines during the 1940s and 1950s, PLDT recovered so easily that its telephone subscribers outpaced that of pre-war levels by 1953.

On December 20th, 1967, a small group of Filipino business owners and businessmen led by Ramon Cojuangco took control of PLDT after purchasing its shares from the American telecommunications company GTE. The group took control of PLDT’s management on January 1st 1968, with the political election of Gregorio S. Licaros and Cojuangco as chairman and president of PLDT respectively. A few months later, PLDT’s main office in Makati City (known today as the Ramon Cojuangco Building) was launched, and PLDT’s expansion programs start off, hoping to bring in responsible telephone services to the rural places.

PLDT was allowed to operate throughout Martial Law. During the 1970s, PLDT was nationalized by the government of then President Ferdinand Marcos and in 1981, in conformity of the existing policy of the Philippine government to integrate the Philippine telecommunications industry, purchased considerably all the liabilities and assets of Republic Telephone Company, turning out to be the country’s telephone monopoly. Under this specific monopoly, service expansion were significantly curtailed or practically nonexistent. In the Martial Law years people would make application for phone service only to wait for years and years on end behind an impossibly very long application backlog. It is really not unknown for the people and small companies in the past to barter for a single telephone line in the black market for tens of thousands of pesos. The incumbent Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore described the problem when visiting the Philippines during the term of President Fidel V. Ramos. He said, albeit in jest, ” In the Philippines 95% of the population doesn’t have a telephone, whilst the remaining 5% are waiting for that dial tone.”

In 1986, after President Marcos was overthrown, the business appeared to be re-privatized as Ramon’s son, Antonio “Tonyboy” Cojuangco assumed post as PLDT chief. By 1995, with the passage of the Telecommunications Act and the following deregulation of the Philippine telecommunications industry, the business continues to be de-monopolized. Later that year, Hong Kong-based First Pacific Company Ltd. acquired a 17.5% stake in PLDT allowing it to be the majority owner of the conglomerate. The company’s CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan became the new conglomerate’s President replacing Cojuangco, who assumed post as Chairman till 2004, when Pangilinan became his successor.

Smart Communications

In 1991, Smart Communications was incorporated, with its major stockholders at the time being certain Philippine companies along with other affiliates of First Pacific (the parent company of PLDT), as well as NTT Communications Capital (UK) Limited. Both groups owned around 96.7% of the new company. On March 24,2000, PLDT completed its share-swap purchase of Smart, making Smart a 100%-owned PLDT subsidiary.

Media Undertakings

In 1998, MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund, acquired Nation Broadcasting Corporation from the joint consortium of the Yabut family and real estate tycoon Manny Villar.

Nine years later, in 2007, MediaQuest acquired the shares of GV Broadcasting Systems, a licensed direct-to-home (DTH)) satellite television service provider from Satventures Inc. of the Galang family. With this, GV transformed its company name to MediaScape Inc.

On March 2, 2010, PLDT publicized that its part, MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has attained 100 percent of ABC Development Corporation (TV5) and Primedia Inc from Media Prima and Antonio “Tonyboy” Cojuangco.

PLDT-Digitel Merging

PLDT got 51.55% of the shares of Digital Telecommunications Philippines from JG Summit Holdings on March 2011 with the cost of P69.2 Billion PHP. Due to this, the shares of Digitel and JG Summit in the PSE surges while PLDT’s shares kept unrevised. In the deal, JG Summit will have a 12% share in PLDT. It had been finalized by the National Telecommunications Commission on Oct 26, 2011.