Following persistent public protest, the House of Representatives is now retreating from its the plan to impose a five-centavo tax on text messages two weeks after approving it for plenary voting on Sept. 8.

The panel agreed to conduct more hearings and approved the motion of Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez to reconsider the approval of Ilocos Sur Rep. Eric Singson’s House bill 6625.

TxtPower told the panel that since the last meeting on Sept. 8, it “did not provide the public, including oppositors, an opportunity to attend and be heard.”

The Cellphone Owners and Users of the Philippines (COUP) had also filed a lawsuit,

“The class suit is filed in order to prevent temporarily, and later on permanently, the illegal, prohibitive and unconstitutional imposition of an excise tax on SMS and overseas calls.” the lawsuit claimed.

There was also an online protest created by OFWs called the No to Text Tax! This online campaign in Facebook was led by Susan Ople, president of the Ople Policy Center; Jun Aguilar, a representative from the Filipino Migrant Workers’ Group; and Lito Soriano of LBS e-Recruitment Solutions. The campaign has garnered more than a thousand supporters just 3 days after its creation.

The Ways and Means committee of the House of Representatives approved last Tuesday a bill proposing to collect a five-centavo excise tax for every text message sent.

Antique Rep. Exequiel Javier said the committee agreed to a proposed tax on text without the ?no pass-on provision? being insisted by Ilocos Sur Rep. Eric Singson. The no pass-on provision (House bill 6625) would prevent telecommunication firms from passing the tax on to consumers.

“It’s very hard to put a no pass-on provision because it is an indirect tax. [A tax is part of the] cost of doing business. You have to pass it on otherwise the business will be losing,” Javier said.

Speaker Prospero Nograles said in a text message to reporters,

“It is very clear that based on our previous hearings, there is no need to increase the cost of the short messaging system service of our telcos because the P1 per text that is already being charged from consumers is more than enough to cover the five-centavo tax for each text,”

Nograles also said that the real cost of sending each text message was only 25 centavos.