Republic Act No. 2345

There is hereby granted to Gonzalo Puyat & Sons, Inc., its successors or assigns, a permit to construct, establish, maintain and operate in the Philippines, at such places as the said corporation may select, subject to the approval of the Secretary of Public Works and Communications, private fixed point-to-point radio stations for the reception and transmission of wireless messages on radiotelegraphy or radiotelephony, each station to be provided with a radio transmitting apparatus and a radio receiving apparatus; each fixed point station to be further provided, according to its needs, with a suitable radio receiving and radio transmitting apparatus which shall enable the station to communicate with land and sea mobile stations located within a radius of not more than fifty kilometers of the fixed point station.

This permit shall continue to be in force until such time as the Government has established at the places selected by the grantee service that is similar and identical to the services to be established by the grantee under this permit, and this permit shall be null and void unless the construction of at least two of the stations allowed by this permit be begun within one year from the date of approval of this Act, and be completed within two years from said date.

The grantee shall file a bond in the amount of fifty thousand pesos to guarantee the full compliance and fulfillment of the conditions under which this franchise is granted. If after four years from the date of the approval of this Act the grantee shall have fulfilled said conditions or as soon thereafter as the grantee shall have fulfilled the same, the bond aforesaid shall be cancelled by the Government.

The President of the Philippines shall have the power and authority to permit the location of any of the stations covered by this permit on lands or waters of the public domain upon such terms as he may prescribe.

The grantee, its successors or assigns, shall not engage in domestic business of telecommunications in the Philippines without special assent from Congress, it being expressly understood that the purpose of this permit is to secure to the grantee the right and privilege of constructing, establishing, maintaining and operating radio communications facilities for the private interests of the grantee.

Under this permit, the Secretary of Public Works and Communications shall allot to the grantee frequencies and wave lengths to be used by the grantee, its successors and assigns, and the grantee shall not use frequencies and wave lengths other than those thus allotted; but, whenever necessary the grantee may use the international distress frequency of five hundred kilocycles and the high distress frequency of eight thousand two hundred eight kilocycles.

No fees are chargeable, as, under this permit, the corporation shall engage in communications regarding its business only.

The grantee shall so construct and operate its radio stations as not to interfere with the operations of other radio stations maintained and operated within the Philippines.

The grantee, its successors and assigns, shall hold harmless the National, provincial and municipal governments of the Philippines from all claims, accounts, demands and actions arising out of accidents or injuries, whether to property or to persons, caused by the construction or operation of its radio stations.

A special right is hereby reserved to the President of the Philippines in time of war, insurrection, public peril, emergency, calamity or disaster to cause the closing of the grantees radio stations or to authorize the temporary use of possession thereof by any department of the Government upon payment of just compensation.

The grantee shall not lease, transfer, grant the use of, sell or assign this permit, nor the rights and privileges acquired by virtue of this permit, to any person, firm, company, corporation or any other legal or commercial entity, nor merge with any other person, company or corporation organized for the same purpose, without the approval of the Congress of the Philippines first had. Any corporation to which this permit may be sold, transferred or assigned, shall be subject to the corporation laws of the Philippines now existing or hereafter to be enacted; and any person, firm, company, corporation or other legal or commercial entity to which this permit is sold, transferred or assigned shall be subject to all the conditions, terms, restrictions and limitations of this permit as fully and completely and to the same extent as if the permit had been originally granted to the said person, firm, company, corporation or other legal or commercial entity.

This permit shall be subject to amendment, alteration or repeal by the Congress of the Philippines when the public interest so requires, and shall not be interpreted as an exclusive grant of the privileges herein provided for.

This Act shall take effect upon its approval.