PRESS RELEASE 2019-021
12 December 2019

PCC strengthens mainstreaming of competition in 18^th Congress

The Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) is making a stronger push to mainstream competition in Congress as it launches a program to train legislative staff on competition law and policy.

The antitrust authority, through its Legislative Liaison Office (LLO), rolled out on Thursday the “Capacity Improvement on Competition Advocacy for Legislative Staff” project. This series of capacity building and advocacy seminars was piloted to legislative staff of the Senate, considering the need to inject proposed economic legislation with a competition perspective.

“Legislative staff are tasked to draft and study bills, serving as the technical backbone of Congress. Impressing on them the importance of competition, particularly in crafting bills regulating trade, industry and commerce, will ensure these are imbued with pro-competitive safeguards when passed into law,” PCC Chairperson Arsenio Balisacan said.

Capacitating legislative staff to pinpoint and discern competition concerns forms part of the PCC’s broader aim to engender a culture of competition in the whole of government.

PCC Chairperson Balisacan, along with Commissioners Johannes Bernabe, Amabelle Asuncion, and Macario de Claro, Jr., served as the seminar’s main lecturers, and spoke on the fundamentals of competition law and practice. In a show of support, Senator Imee Marcos, Economic Affairs Committee Chairperson, and Senator Win Gatchalian, Energy Committee Chairperson, took part in the event.

The PCC-LLO delved deep into specialized topics such as competition issues in government interventions, the competition landscape in key markets, and competition impact .

This linkage with the Senate will also serve as a platform for the competition authority to advocate its priority bills across its seven identified focus areas: telecommunications, energy, retail, construction, transportation, food, and health and pharmaceuticals.

The PCC-LLO will conduct a similar forum with the House of Representatives in the next quarter to be followed by local government units in the second half of 2020.

Thursday’s competition seminar is done in partnership with the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office–Senate.