FOLIO Magazine Issue#3, 2000 ©


pldt.com: THE MOUSE THAT ROARED (or the trial of GERRY KAIMO) by Bill Huang


Thanks to the lawsuit filed by the Philippine Long Distance Company, Gerry Kaimo's pldt.com now enjoys thousands of hits a day.

August 28, it's Monday morning, 10:30 am, and Gerry Kaimo on the telephone, taking a call from a group of Italians. They're on Kalentong Street, they report, and should be over shortly for their public-television interview, which, incidentally, was supposed to start 10:30 am.

Thirty minutes later, Kaimo realizes they may have been on Kalentong. But exactly were on Kalentong was another matter. In Asia, there such a thing as "Filipino time", Gerry wondered, do the Europeans have "Italian time"?

They finally arrive 20 minutes later, a crew of four Italians, plus two Filipinos who have been shepherding them through Metro Manila. They are in town in search of a story on computers in developing countries, and how cause-oriented groups are using the Internet to enact socio-political change, or at least that's how they put it in their letter of introduction in late July.

Using the Internet to enact socio-political change? Sounds like a civic action crusade, right? But now they are weaving a story on the local hacker subculture, recently highlighted by the now infamous Onel de Guzman, the alleged I LOVE YOU virus author and hacker. Shooting starts.

Are they implying that Kaimo is a hacker? It doesn't seem to matter. The Italians go about interviewing him and filming him at work. From a publicity standpoint, this morning has to be a coup of sorts for Gerry Kaimo. His name also shows up in the information technology section of one of Metro Manila's major dailies, in an article on the issue of cybersquatting.

Kaimo has taken pains to point out, both in the article and to anyone who will listen, that he is no cybersquatter. But that doesn't seem to matter either, because on this fine Monday morning, what counts is that Gerry Kaimo, registered owner of the Internet domain name pldt.com and webmaster of the satirical site of the same name, is now famous. Well, maybe notorious. And he owes it all to the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company.

The telephone company's conspiracy theory

A year ago on September 23, Kaimo and the Philippine League for Democratic Telecommunications Inc. (PLDTI) received summonses to appear in court as co-defendants in a suit filed by the nation's largest telephone company, charging, among other things, "unauthorized appropriation and registration of 'PLDT.com' as a domain name for their Site". The case is being tried in Quezon City Regional Trial Court, Branch 90, in the sala of Judge Reynaldo Daway.

Kaimo is amused that the telephone company would lump him and PLDTI together in this suit as co-owners and co-authors of the pldt.com (http://www.pldt.com) website. Inasmuch as Exhibit A of their own evidence is a copy of a response to an online query addressed to Network Solutions, the Virginia-based registrar of Internet domain names where pldt.com is registered. The information shows that pldt.com is registered to the entity called KRC, on 101 Quezon Avenue in Quezon City, and lists Kaimo as administrative and billing contract. Nowhere is PLDTI mentioned in the registration information.

In its own reply to the charges, PLDTI maintains that while it sympathizes and supports many of Kaimo's beliefs, it is neither a co-owner nor a co-author of the site. The group believes that its inclusion in the suit against pldt.com is due primarily to their public stand against the telephone company's rate-rebalancing proposal, which includes a plan to meter local telephone calls.

In November 1997, citing the prospects of declining revenues from international telephone calls, the telephone company obtained from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) a provisional authority to implement its rate-rebalancing proposal, which included an increase in fixed rates, a provision for a currency exchange-rate adjustment, and the mandatory metering of local telephone calls.

In October 1998, with the first two items already in place, and days before PLDT would have been authorized to commence metering local calls, the Philippine Daily Inquirer ran a headline story warning of the impending imposition of local-call metering, and citing a then-unknown advocacy group, PLDTI, as its source of information.

The resulting massive public outcry against what was perceived as a rate increase in disguise, and not the revenue-neutral rate-rebalancing plan that the telephone company had made its proposal out to be, resulted in two senate hearings and a subsequent suspension of the provisional authority given the telephone company by the NTC. In spite of the suspension of the provisional authority, the telephone company's operating revenues from its landline operations have not declined, and in fact, have continued to improve.

pldt.com's conspiracy theory

Kaimo has his own conspiracy theory. "I can't help but think that this action is related to my posting of comments and pictures of what was going on in East Timor,'" he says. In a referendum held in late August 1999, the people of East Timor voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Indonesia, who invaded and occupied the territory in 1975. The territory is still struggling, not just to build a new independent nation, but to recover from the atrocities committed against the East Timorese by the Indonesian army and by pro-Indonesian militia groups.

Gerry Kaimo feels that he has reason to be suspicious of the Indonesians. PLDT president Manuel Angelina is executive chairman of First Pacific Company Ltd., which has a 17% controlling stake in PLDT. First Pacific is a Hong Kong-based conglomerate with alleged links to former Indonesian dictator Suharto via the father-and-son tandem of Soedono and Anthoni Salim, who sit on the board of First Pacific as honorary chairman/adviser to the board and non-executive director, respectively.

The difference between

Kaimo has admitted that he is an incorporator and a director of PLDTI, but insists that he owns and maintain the site by himself, "think all one would have to do is look at both sites to see that there is quite a difference between our sites and our approaches," he says. And there is quite a difference. PLDTI's site, at http://www.PLDTI.org, is serious, earnest, determined, and even polite, as the group lays out on its home page its objectives, as well as the first paragraph of its Opposition-in-Intervention at the NTC. Kaimo's site is no less earnest and determined, but serious and polite, it is not.

Kaimo's site, which went up in December 1998,is an outrageous collection of rants and snide asides aimed at not just the telephone company, but at local politics, taking swipes at just about everything from the government's military campaign in Mindanao the regional dispute over the Spratly Island chain, and La Viuda Loca, the site's name for former First Lady Imelda Marcos, who, incidentally, continues to claim that her family still owns major local businesses, including PLDT.

In between all those issues and personalities, there is space for the occasional consumer issue, i.e., Globe telephone customer relations and exploding Bridgestone radial tires. The site also declared its support for the Inquirer and The Manila Times during their respective crises last year, allegedly at the hands of certain friends of and advisers to President Joseph Estrada.

In addition to taking swipes at the above-mentioned targets, pldt.com also hosts public discussion boards and a free e-mail service. Since the lawsuit, it has enjoyed thousands of hits a day.

In November 1999,at the Web Philippines awards ceremonies honoring the year's most innovative and popular local websites, Kaimo and pldt.com drew the biggest applause of the evening, a standing ovation, in fact, as pldt.com received a People's Choice award in the category of Weird/Humor. Ironically, PLDT, the telephone company, was listed as a Sponsor of the awards ceremonies.

The bearable (if unbelievable) lightness of PLDT's case

In spite of the gravity of being sued by the nation's largest telephone company in court, Kaimo's attorney, Teddy Cruz of Cruz Enverga & Lucero, and Rod Domingo, PLDTI's counsel actually look like they are taking things in stride. They consult with one other animatedly, supporting each other's objections, and, when necessary, cover for each other during cross-examinations of the telephone company's witnesses.

Earlier that month, the telephone company's first witness, media division head Horace Lavides, an employee since 1968,had been forced to admit, under cross-examination, that very little in the affidavit that he signed and swore to against pldt.com was actually based on personal knowledge.

In fact, not only was Lavides not personally involved in the registration of their own website (http://www.pldt.com.ph) but under cross examination, he mistakenly said that their own domain name had been registered with Network Solutions, instead with the dot.PH company, the local affiliate of Network Solutions that handles Philippine Internet domain name registration.

It was also revealed that the telephone company had registered its pldt.com.ph domain name in March 1996, while Kaimo registered his pldt.com domain name in July 1998, In Kaimo's response, he states that pldt.com was, in fact, available from April 28, 1998 to July 20, 1998,when he applied for it. Prior to Kaimo's registration, pldt.com had been previously registered by two local companies, the Yutivo Corporation and a group called Webscape, who obviously had let their respective registration lapse.

When asked why PLDT did not pursue the previous owners of pldt.com prior to Kaimo, Lavides stated that PLDT was happy using the address pldt.com.ph, but decided to file suit only when they saw the use of the pldt.com website to publish derogatory articles against the corporation.

The other major revelation of that hearing, however, didn't come from Lavides, but from PLDT's own attorneys, who prior to the cross examination of Lavides, had to admit that the 13 PLDT trademark
and logo registration applications they submitted as Exhibits 1 to 1-12,which were filed on November 19, 1997, where still pending. This means that the telephone company actually has no legal registration of the 'PLDT' acronym, symbol, or "Touching Lives" slogan that it claims have been infringed upon by the defendants.

This has prevented the telephone company from mounting a direct challenge to Kaimo's registration of pldt.com with Network Solutions. It is limited to obtaining a notification from Network Solutions that "the disputed domain name registration(s)will not be transfered, suspended, or otherwise modified during the pendency of the action, except upon order of the court".

Polie doesn't want a cracker, he IS one

On February 8, PLDT's second witness took the stand, a re-insurance broker named Apolinario "Polie" de los Santos, who wrote a "Dear Manny" letter that was submitted as part of the evidence against the defendants. In his letter, de los Santos, who signed his letter, "Polie (Clearly for you!)" in computer Brush Script, claimed to have been misled to pldt.com, and confused and upset by it, while searching for the telephone company's own corporate website.

On cross-examination by Cruz, de los Santos had to admit not only that he already knew the telephone company's corporate domain name prior to accessing pldt.com, but also that he was anything but a disinterested spectator. His re-insurance business not only derived a good bit of business from PLDT, but was also owned in large part, by Bonifacio Land Corporation corporate affiliate of Metro Pacific, and by extension, PLDT.

Under cross-examination by Cruz, de los Santos was asked to read aloud a disclaimer written by Kaimo that appeared on a front page of pldt.com: 100%PURE Pinoy-UNADULTERATED ANGST, PAIN, HORROR,
TEARS, RUMORS, LAUGHTER and LIES FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY OR YOUR MONEY BACK. By the time Cruz had de los Santos read the pldt.com disclaimer aloud, to the snickers of the spectators, PLDT's lawyers were offering no requests for clarification of defense counsel's questions, no objection to the questions.

In fact, it seemed as if they themselves were writing off de los Santos' testimony as comic relief, albeit unintended. In the meantime, Kaimo was beaming with an author's pride. "Those are my words being entered into the record!"

Show and tell

It is two weeks later, there is a bit of a stir in the courtroom, as the telephone company's counsel, from the law offices of SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan, asks permission to use the court's electrical outlet and telephone line to set up a notebook computer and hook it up to the Internet for a demonstration that would be part of their witness testimony.

The motions draws no objection from the defendant's counsel, so Judge Daway has called a short recess, as technicians and upcoming PLDT witness Manuel Bausa check the preparations for his demonstration. During the recess, Cruz quips in jest, that of course, PLDT can have permission to use the court's electricity and telephone line, as long as it pays the fees. Cruz' quip draws a chuckle from Kaimo, who says, "of course PLDT will pay, and then they'll turn around and charge us all for it." Rim shot, please.

A half-hour later, the court is back on session, and Bausa, having been sworn in, has commenced his demonstration, which is being annotated by PLDT lead counsel Carlos Roberto Lopez Jr for the benefit of the judge and the court. The court stenographer, who has been having difficulties transcribing Internet domain addresses, now has have to transcribe Bausa's Internet demonstration, being projected on a blank wall on the left side of the courtroom.

This involves not only having to describe the icons and folder on Bausa's Microsoft windows screen, but also the actions of moving a mouse cursor to one of these icons and folders and double clicking them (how would one note that down: clicking really fast, or clicking twice in rapid succession?)

And so the demonstration proceeds, with Lopez' annotation, from opening a dial-up box with a pre-entered telephone number and password, and then clicking on the 'connect' box.

Within a minute, a connection is established, and Bausa is logged on to Cable News Network's home page (http://www.cnn.com). Using his mouse, he maneuvers his way to the address line of his Internet browser, and from his computer keyboard, he types in http://www.pldt.com, and presses the "Enter" key. In a second, a black screen comes-up, in the middle of which is an image of hand, reduced to its skeleton, clutching at a telephone encased in a thicket of barbed wire. Above the image is the title in two parts: PLDT.COM, and below it appears slogan, "Torturing Lives", which alternates every five seconds with "Clearly for Cash". As Lopez annotates the scene, Gerry Kaimo scans the courtroom with an almost maniacal grin, and clasps his hands together, much as referee clasps a winning fighter's gloved hand when the decision has been announced. If this is not the moment he has been waiting for, this is certainly a moment he is relishing. "The site's in the books, we're making legal history!" he whispers to an observer.

Only the beginning?

Amid all the stumbling and bumbling of PLDT's witnesses, and the alacrity with which the defense counsels have been attacking their credibility, it is easy to lose sight of a couple of others important things.

First, it is a landmark case, a challenge to local trademark laws from the wide-open world open registration over the Internet. Indeed, the defense maintains, among other things, that the local courts have no jurisdiction over Internet domain name registration. Trademarks are territorial, domain are universal, Cruz states in Kaimo's reply.

Some in the media have characterized the pldt.com case as one of "cybersquatting" which involves the reservation and registration of a domain name with the express purpose of reselling it to a person or entity that is perceived to be able to benefit from it commercially.

A number of these reports have cited the case of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), which was awarded the domain name worldwrestlingfederation.com by an arbitrator for the world Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva. They said that a California resident who had registered the name and offered to sell it to the WWF had acted in bad faith. Kaimo takes exception to the attempt to imply guilt by association, inasmuch as he feels that those who would lump him together with the cybersquatters are definitely not familiar with this case. "For one, I've never offered to sell the domain name to the telephone company'" he says. "And if they want to register 'philippinelongdistancetelephone.com' they're welcome to it."

The other major consideration is that the hearings are literally, only the beginning of the case of PLDT against pldt.com. PLDT may have dropped its plea for temporary restraining order and/or preliminary injunction, but for all the lawyers' maneuvering and objecting, these hearings are only about whether or not PLDT is entitled to obtain an injunction against the site. After PLDT presents its witnesses, the defense will present its case(s), all of which may take us to the next century before the decision on the injuction is granted.

And, as bitterly and as spiritedly contested as this case has been thus far, when a decision is granted, there is a good chance the other side will appeal. If, by some extraordinary set of circumstances, neither side appeals the verdict on the junction, then the case will proceed to the trial to determine damages, if any. The whole process could take up to five years.

In the meantime, the telephone company will have its vast resources to bring to bear against Gerry Kaimo and PLDTI. Legal sources claim that the company has already incurred legal costs in excess of the P1.35 million it seeks in damages.

Meanwhile, PLDTI expects to continue its fight against local-call metering, the telephone company's new prepaid landline service, expiration dates on-stored value cards, all as part of its crusade for affordable access to telecommunications services.

And pldt.com will continue to skewer the hapless objects of Gerry Kaimo's wrath, from the Estrada administrations military campaign in Mindanao, it's bumbling over the Abu Sayyaf hostage- taking crisis, and naturally, the telephone company's legendary slow, inefficient and unresponsive service.

What could be the funniest, if not the best, line about the case still comes from pldt.com, in a reaction posted on the site shortly after the summonses were served on the defendants. "This is a case involving free speech on the internet, two things that PLDT, in this clumsy attempt at coercion and intimidation, has shown it knows precious little about," Kaimo was quoted as saying.

With Gerry Kaimo as David to the telephone company's Goliath, the next five years should be entertaining, at the very least. Don't even think of turning your back on this one.