Pasig City—Philippine antitrust chief Arsenio M. Balisacan met with Mr. Toh Han Li, Chief Executive and Commissioner of Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS), to strengthen ties with other competition institutions in the ASEAN, 6 October 2016.

“The Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) aspires to be a world-class authority in promoting fair market competition to help achieve a vibrant and inclusive economy and advance consumer welfare,” said Balisacan.

He added that to do this, the Philippines will continue to benchmark and partner with international competition authorities to beef up PCC’s capacity in enforcing the country’s competition law.

“While we have been able to attract talented and committed team members, one of our challenges in PCC is capacity building. We hope that this is a start of a good collaboration between our institutions,” Balisacan said.

Meanwhile, Li shared Singapore’s experiences in the early years of CCS and the best practices they have.

He said, “Key to effective enforcement are proper procedure and protocols. In our case, our staff have been trained by the police and we have an attorney present during interviews,” Li said.

Li said he was excited for the Philippines since it was the most recent country in Asia to have competition law. He said CCS is ready to help PCC in strengthening its capacity in enforcing the Philippine Competition Act.

Officially organized in February 2016, PCC is mandated to implement the national competition policy and prohibit anti-competitive agreements, abuses of dominant market position, and anti-competitive business mergers and acquisitions.