Exporters cheer passage of competition law

Philippine exporters hailed the passage in the Senate of the Fair Competition Act of 2014, as this would be critical in making local firms more competitive amid an integrated regional economy.

Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr., president of the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport), said in a statement that Senate Bill (SB) 2282 can help attract investments and ensure that businesses operate in a level playing field.

“This is critically important within the regime of an Asean Economic Community to protect both local and foreign businesses with the legal environment against anti-competitive trade practices,” Ortiz-Luis noted.

One of the key features of the bill is the creation of the Fair Competition Commission, which will ensure that industrial concentration will not limit economic power to a few firms or groups.

According to Ortiz-Luis, such a commission should serve as the “competition policy overseer of the various sectoral regulatory agencies that are supposed to handle standard setting and technical details relevant to the particular products or services that they cover.”

This commission should also be able to exercise its mandate “free from political undertones and influences.”

“As such, the Commission is supposed to look at the impact of the operations of these individual sectors on the entire economy and balance their interests with the common good,” Ortiz-Luis said.

The Senate recently passed on third and final reading SB 2282, which was aimed at eliminating monopolies, cartels and other unfair business practices that lead to high prices of goods and services.

It will likewise safeguard the welfare of businesses, and protect entrepreneurs against abuse of dominance and position, and other unfair practices that put both Filipino businesses and their consumers at risk.

This bill was introduced by Sen. Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, chair of the Senate Committee on Trade, Commerce and Entrepreneurship.

Aquino earlier explained that this “lengthy and difficult bill” would create a new realm of competition policy for the Philippines as it would create new rules, parameters and the necessary guidelines to ensure fair competition in the country.

This, he had stressed, was necessary as the Philippines is the only member-country of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that does not have a definite competition policy.

“It’s also part of our commitment to the Asean Economic Community and is possibly a requirement for our participation at the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement at some point in the future. I think if we intend for the Philippines to move (forward), we need to have this (policy) in place,” Aquino earlier said.