Driven by strict compliance with collection rules, the National Telecommunications Commission, or NTC, reported a 62 percent surge in its 2023 collection target.

NTC disclosed on Monday that actual collection last year reached P9.43 billion, or about P3.5 billion higher than the target of P5.91 billion set by the Development Budget Coordination Committee. Notably, the 2023 collection was slightly lower than the P9.5 billion collected in 2022.

NTC Commissioner Ella Blanca Lopez attributed the feat to an agency-wide initiative to strictly enforce stakeholders' compliance in remitting spectrum users' fees, supervision, and regulation fees and penalties.

"The NTC's systematic collection effort is the Agency's modest way of contributing to the public service programs of our dear President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr., priorities of which are on food security, free and universal primary education, and public health," Lopez said.

The Agency's collection targets are mandated by the Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing, which is required by the Constitution and consolidated by the Department of Budget Management.

NTC is a government agency that regulates cable and commercial television operators, broadcast radio stations, telecommunications companies, and commercial and portable radio operators.