Fair Competition commish a bad idea – Justice ASec

An official of the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday said the creation of an independent body to monitor all competition in different local industries would be “impossible," warning it could even adversely affect competition domestically. “We’re coming from a zero entity. It’s like we’re jumping from kindergarten then going onto PhD," DOJ Assistant Secretary Geronimo Sy said during the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility's forum on the Competition Policy on Thursday. Sy was referring to House Bill 4835 also known as the “Philippine Fair Competition Act of 2011" currently pending before the lower house, which seeks to establish an independent Fair Competition Commission that will police against monopolistic abuses among businesses in the country, among other things. “The problem is the people that are going to be assigned in this commission have term limits, so it runs the risk of being politicized," Sy added. The DOJ official said that given the current situation where designated regulators in specific industries are not effective in curbing cartel-like or monopolistic practices, “why do we think that a super body [on competition] will work?" Office for Competition At best, Sy said the existing Office for Competition established under President Benigno Aquino's Executive Order 45 was enough to monitor anti-competitive practices for now. Sy said that the current set-up where the DOJ oversees the implementation of existing laws on competition and anti-trust is a feasible way of policing these regulators. “If we receive a complaint [regarding] a certain regulator, then we ask that regulator to explain why they are not doing the mandated regulator duties expected of them," Sy said. He cited the case of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), which has been pushing a lot of things that will benefit the consumer but have not fully actualized them given pressure from big companies. “If the NTC is serious about their job, then they wouldn’t care if [the telcos] file or seek for a temporary restraining order against them. What happens is that they are using a third wheel, the judiciary, to tie up all these cases," he stressed. Most of the time, Sy said, regulators would seek the intervention of the judiciary in such cases to delay the process. He added that there are at least P300 billion worth of economic cases currently pending before the judiciary, which have yet to be resolved. Comprehensive competition policy Sy also highlighted the need for a comprehensive competition policy to be set in place. While there are legal provisions scattered across the country's different laws, Sy stressed the need for a comprehensive law on competition so as to better promote enforcement. He pointed out that despite these currently existing laws, the people tasked to implement these laws were the ones stalling their enforcement. “The design of the law is not the end of the problem, it’s just the beginning," Sy said. “What is critical with implementation is that you put the right people to do it." Difference between Senate, House versions Several bills have been filed before both chambers of Congress seeking to promote fair trade and competition among businesses. Sy, as co-chairman of the Senate Technical Working Group of the Anti-Trust Law, said they are confident the Senate will come out with good anti-trust bill since it has already gone through about nine revisions after taking into account various policy models from Europe, the US and even neighboring Asian countries. One of the key differences that the Senate version of the bill has, Sy pointed out, was that it seeks to punish the monopolistic abuses of the dominant firm only, while the House version does not discriminate between dominant and non-dominant firms. At present, the House version of the bill has just passed second reading, while its Senate counterpart hasn’t and is still pending at the committee level. An antitrust law is one of the priority bills President Aquino had certified to Congress as urgent at the start of the year. — MRT, GMA News