READ SEN. SOTTO'S RESOLUTION TO INVESTIGATE POOR CELL PHONE SERVICES

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YOU all know who Lucio Tan is, and doubtless you've heard about his ongoing dodge ball game with the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Sr. Christine Tan is the courageous soul who spoke out and accused the Malacañang Actor that irregularities have been happening regarding money that was supposed to have been given to charity. Of course the Malacañang Actor said the reports were all lies, lies, lies. Newspapers are liars, nuns are liars, your mothers are liars and he and his cronies are the only ones saying the truth.

But who is Lorna Tan?

Lorna Tan-Araneta is a fellow crusader at the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Lorna Tan it was whom I spoke with a few days ago, and this time we didn't talk about China markers, pager batteries or leave of absence forms.

Lorna Tan it was who, in January 1999, was informed by Smart Communications Inc. that the phone bill for her lousy analog cellular phone carried an overdue amount of P10,873. A copy of the bill was faxed to her. Suspecting the possibility of her cell phone being cloned, she was advised to identify the calls which she actually made. Most of the calls originated from Davao. Lorna has never been to Davao, so the thought crystallized in her head: Her phone had been cloned, and we're not talking about Dolly or woolly mammoths.

Lorna Tan it was who informed Smart about the calls she never made, but still got an unpleasant surprise on Feb. 3, 1999 when her bills had climbed to P14,483. On Feb. 25 she faxed a letter of complaint to Raine Trapane of Smart, and on March 19 she went to the Smart head office to file another letter of complaint, this time addressed to Rose Espinosa of credit and collection. It was also then when Ms Tan of Smart tweaked Lorna's phone so that, according to her, it would never get cloned again.

Lorna Tan it was who, on March 29, 1999, found out that her bills had accumulated to P17,057. In April, Smart's Ling Ferrer said she would look into her account's problem.

In May, P14,814.28 were removed from her bills, thanks to Ferrer. However, there still remained disputed calls amounting to more than P2,000. Lorna faxed Alvin Guevarra again asking to have the problem fixed. By then it was already Oct. 18.

On Dec. 16, Lorna Tan filed a letter of complaint again at Smart's head office. Grace Loca showed her the latest billing statement, and this time the calls originated from Maguindanao. Again, Lorna had never been to Maguindanao.

Lorna followed up her complaint dated Dec. 16, 1999 and was told by Smart's Ching Rona to wait till March 16, 2000 (talk about reaction time!). Lorna was advised to disregard the bill.

However, on March 8, 2000 Lorna Tan received a letter from Nobility Collection Agency asking her to settle the remaining bill of P2,958.72 within 10 days, otherwise they would file a case against her. She called the agency and told them the amount was still being disputed. The agency told her they would call Smart.

However, when Lorna called up Smart's Luz Hermoso of credit and collection and told her about Nobility's threat of filing a case against her, she was told that Smart would call up Nobility.

And so they were saying they would call each other up. The disputed amount has yet to be settled.

Lorna Tan it was whose ordeal with Smart started January, 1999, and Lorna Tan it is who is still getting stressed out because of filing complaints up to March, 2000-14 months after her original complaint.

Now you know who Lorna Tan is. And she's not related to either Lucio or Sr. Christine.

I'm sure many Filipinos have their own horror stories about cellular phone services and billing. You've seen quite a fair share of them in this column, but still the complaints do not end.

Curiously, Sen. Tito Sotto has filed a resolution to investigate poor cell phone services. Sotto mentions the proliferation of complaints about dropped calls, poor reception and interconnection problems and the growing headache consumers are getting with their prepaid phone cards.

I had long been under the impression that the National Telecommunications Commission is tasked to settle such problems, and that the Department of Trade and Industry is supposed to be acting on such consumer complaints.