MANILA, Philippines, April 23, 2013 – Earlier today, Manuel V. Pangilinan, Managing Director of First Pacific Company Limited (“FPC”) (HKEx: 142) and Chairman of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) (PSE: TEL) announced the appointment of Ray C. Espinosa as Associate Director of FPC and his new assignment as the Group’s Head of Government and Regulatory Affairs and Head of the Communications Bureau, both in the Philippines. Mr. Espinosa will also assist the First Pacific Group in respect of new investments in the Philippines and in the region.
 

MANILA, 15 April 2013 -- Digital Telecommunications Philippines, Inc. (Digitel) has completed its redundancy program with about 80% of the 427 affected employees accepting the enhanced redundancy package offered by the company. 
 

MANILA, Philippines, April 1, 2013 - Leading telecommunications firm PLDT is rapidly expanding its fiber-to-the-home network, bringing ultra-fast broadband connection to over 300 residential subdivisions all over the country.

“The fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband connection enables PLDT to offer customers triple play services that provide not just access for voice and data but also allow seamless streaming of high quality video,” said PLDT EVP and Head of Home Ariel Fermin.
 

MANILA, Philippines, April 1, 2013 - FITCH Ratings has upgraded over the Easter weekend the credit ratings for leading telecoms firm PLDT following the upgrade in the Philippine sovereign ratings to investment grade and in view of the company’s solid credit profile.
 
PLDT’s long-term foreign currency issuer default rating and senior unsecured rating were raised to ‘BBB’ from ‘BBB-’ with a stable outlook. PLDT’s long-term local currency issuer default rating and national long-term rating were also affirmed at ‘A-’ and ‘AAA(phl)’, respectively.
 

MANILA, 15 March 2013 -- Digital Telecommunications Philippines, Inc. (Digitel) has completed the redundancy program for its remaining employees affected by its decision to migrate landline subscribers to PLDT.
 
"Digitel has had to conduct this redundancy program following the decision to migrate subscribers in its franchise areas in northern, central, and southern Luzon to PLDT. Every effort, however, has been exerted to cushion the impact of this move on the affected employees,” PLDT Group Spokesperson Ramon Isberto said.
 

MANILA, Philippines, March 11, 2013 - Leading telecoms carrier PLDT is rolling out this year over 5,000 kilometers of new fiber optic cable (FOC) facilities at the cost of about P2.5 billion.  This would extend the total reach of its fiber network to almost 60,000 kilometers, about five times more than the competition.

“With this expansion program, we are bolstering our already formidable fiber advantage. Fiber is key to having the capacity to deliver next-generation, large-bandwidth data services,” said PLDT and Smart President and CEO Napoleon L. Nazareno.

A breakdown in Globe Telecom’s fiber optic transmission backbone in Metro Manila was found to be the actual cause of Globe’s network problems in northern Luzon over the past few days. Globe engineers finally made this admission to their PLDT counterparts Thursday morning.
 

MANILA, Philippines, February 22, 2013 – Leading telecoms company PLDT, in partnership with Asia’s biggest telecoms firms, boosted its international bandwidth capacity to Hong Kong with the completion of the fiber optic cable extension project in the undersea Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE) system.
 

MANILA, Philippines, February 12, 2013 - Pursuing its multi-media strategy, telecoms leader PLDT has launched a new service offering free blockbuster movies to high-speed broadband subscribers using its fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network.
 
PLDT has partnered with Clickplay.ph, the country's first movie-streaming service, to bring this service to its Fibr broadband subscribers.  Clickplay.ph has over 70 Hollywood movies in its data base such as The Dark Knight Rises, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Hangover, Happy Feet and Superman Returns, among others.