PHILIPPINE Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (PT&T) should settle its mounting debts first before vying for the third slot in the telecommunications industry as the local partner of a Chinese firm, a government official said.

“Bayaran muna nila mga utang nila ... Paano sila magiging player kung may utang sila? (They should pay off their debts first ... How could they become a player if they have debts?),” Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) officer-in-charge Eliseo Rio told The Manila Times in a phone interview over the weekend.