EVEN as he expressed support for Gerry Kaimo, Philippine League for Democratic Telecommunications Inc. president Manny Amador clarified that the PLDTI does not own or administer the pldt.com website which has earned the ire of telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.

Claiming copyright infringement, PLDT on Sept. 23 sued pldt.com domain name owner and webmaster Gerry Kaimo and PLDTI, asking for P1.35 million in damages and the enforcement of a temporary restraining order on the pldt.com website.

PLDT claims it has exclusive rights over the "PLDT" acronym, whether it appears in a domain name or is embedded in the meta tags of a website's Hypertext Markup Language code.

In its complaint, PLDT also said that Kaimo's site is diverting surfers from PLDT's own corporate site at www.pldt.com.ph.

"The league does not administer the pldt.com site, so we don't know why we've been named as a respondent. Gerry Kaimo is a director of the league, but it's a personal website. This does not mean that we're abandoning him or anything. I guess the main point we want to make is that we don't administer the site," Amador said.

Amador spoke to the Inquirer during the dotPH Inc.'s announcement last Wednesday of the availability of a flat domain space for the .PH Philippine country code Top-Level Domain (TLD).

The dotPH also announced its partnership with US-based Network Solutions Inc. (NSI), the largest TLD registrant, which administers the InterNIC (www.internic.net) domain registration system. NSI (www.networksolutions.com) administers the .COM domain name, including pldt.com, while PLDT's pldt.com.ph domain is administered by dotPH.

Some industry observers have wondered why it was only now that PLDT decided to file legal action over the pldt.com site, which has been up since 1998.

Meanwhile, the consumer group PLDTI has been active in opposing PLDT's scheme to implement phone metering or Local Measured Service. In fact, the popular "No To Metering" site at http://www3.iconn.com.ph/magnet/ became one of the channels for voicing metering issues, though this page was also a personal site and not PLDTI-owned.

Could the filing of the pldt.com case and its timing be a reaction to PLDTI's anti-metering crusade?

"I don't know if this is related, but we at the league have expected some kind of reaction from PLDT, because every time we've come out in public about PLDT, we've whipped them pretty good. As far as metering goes, there's still no justification. They have no new arguments and the funny thing is that as the days pass, the case for metering is getting weaker.

"Now, as for our case, I don't know how that (anti-metering stance) ties in, but the thing is they don't like us very much. I don't see any connection right now," he said.

The hearing has been scheduled for tomorrow after the respondents successfully asked for a postponement. Asked what legal options PLDTI would take, Amador declined to comment. He stressed, however, that he would support Kaimo.

"Yes, we're supporting him, but that depends on what you mean by support. Personally, he's a friend since way back. As for financial support, we don't have money. But as for moral support, we're giving him that, and I think that Gerry has the moral support of the Internet community," he said.

As for the legal suit's implications, Amador agreed that it might be possible for the case to become a landmark one in the Philippines.