REPUBLIC ACT NO. 1546 - AN ACT GRANTING THE ESSEL, INCORPORATED, A TEMPORARY PERMIT TO ESTABLISH, MAINTAIN AND OPERATE PRIVATE FIXED POINT-TO-POINT RADIOTELEPHONE STATIONS FOR THE TRANSMISSION AND RECEPTION OF WIRELESS MESSAGES TO AND FROM SAID STATIONS.

[ REPUBLIC ACT NO. 1546, June 16, 1956 ]

AN ACT GRANTING THE ESSEL, INCORPORATED, A TEMPORARY PERMIT TO ESTABLISH, MAINTAIN AND OPERATE PRIVATE FIXED POINT-TO-POINT RADIOTELEPHONE STATIONS FOR THE TRANSMISSION AND RECEPTION OF WIRELESS MESSAGES TO AND FROM SAID STATIONS.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Congress assembled:

SECTION 1. The Essel, Incorporated, its successors or assigns, is hereby granted a temporary permit to establish, maintain and operate private fixed point-to-point radio telephone stations in the City of Cebu and in other parts of the Philippines where it operates its business, subject to the approval of the Secretary of Public Works and Communications, for the transmission and reception of messages to and from said stations, including its mobile unit.

SEC. 2. The President of the Philippines shall have the power and authority to permit the construction, maintenance and operation of said private fixed point-to-point radiotelephone stations on any land of the public domain upon such terms as he may prescribe.

SEC. 3. The temporary permit granted under this Act shall continue to be in force while the Government has not established similar service at places hereinabove stated, and subject to the condition that the grantee, its successors or assigns, shall start operation under said permit within one and a half years from the date of the approval of this Act.

SEC. 4. The grantee, its successors or assigns, shall not engage in domestic business of telecommunications in the Philippines, it being understood that the temporary permit granted under this Act merely secures the right of the grantee to establish, maintain and operate private fixed point-to-point radiotelephone stations at the places hereinabove stated for no other purpose than to promote, protect and subserve the trade and business interest of the grantee.

SEC. 5. The actual operation of said private fixed point-to-point radiotelephone stations shall not commence until after the Secretary of Public Works and Communications shall have alloted to the grantee the frequencies and wave lengths to be used thereunder.

SEC. 6. The grantee, its successors or assigns, shall construct and operate such stations as not to interfere with the operation of other radio stations maintained and operated in the Philippines.

SEC. 7. The grantee, its successors or assigns, shall hold the national, provincial, city and municipal governments of the Republic of the Philippines harmless from all claims, accounts, demands, or actions arising out of accidents or injuries, whether to property or to persons, caused by the construction or operation of its radiotelephone stations.

SEC. 8. The grantee, its successors or assigns, shall be subject to the corporation laws of the Philippines no existing or which may hereafter be enacted.

SEC. 9. A special right is hereby reserved to the President of the Philippines in time of war, rebellion, public peril, calamity, disaster or disturbance of peace or order to cause the closing of the grantee's radiotelephone stations or to authorize the temporary use and operation thereof by any department of the Government upon just compensation.

SEC. 10. The temporary permit granted under this Act 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 privilege herein provided for.

SEC. 11. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

Approved, June 16, 1956.