President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday threatened to shut down the operations of the two incumbent telecom companies should they fail to improve their poor and lousy services by December this year. 

“I’ve call on our communication companies to improve their services  or else we will be forced to take drastic steps to address it,”  Duterte said in his 5th  State of the Nation Address (SONA). 

“If you are not ready to improve, I might just as well close all of you and we will revert back to the line of telephone,” he added. 

“Kukunin ko ‘yan i-expropriate ko ‘yan. Alam mo itong Smart pati yung Globe ilang taon na ito at ang sagot laga sa akin. The party cannot be reached. Saan bang napunta yang yawa na yan,” he added. 

Duterte said the patience of Filipino people is “reaching its limit” because of lousy telecom services in the country. 

“I will be the one to articulate the anger of the Filipino people and you might not want what i intent to do with you … Kindly improve the services before December. I want to call Jesus Christ to Betlehem … better have that line cleared,” he said. 

“Tell us now if yo cannot really improve it by December. I have two years [more] and the next two years will be spent improving the telecom of this country without you. I will find a way, I will talk to Congress,” Duterte added.