Chapter 10: Promote Competition and Improve Regulatory Efficiency
As the country emerges from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, ensuring an open and competitive market economy will be crucial to sustain economic recovery and encourage job creation. Genuine competition and enhanced regulatory efficiency will not only encourage investments and improve infrastructure, but also enable businesses—especially micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME)—to enter and compete in the market. In turn, market competition and ease of doing business will expand consumer access to affordable, innovative, and high-quality goods and services.
Rapid digital transformation of markets poses new challenges and opportunities for competition enforcement and regulation. One challenge is that rapid digital transformation heightens the tendency and ability of large firms with more access to new digital technologies to consolidate market power. Digitalization facilitates easier coordination among market players (but also, possible collusion) using new and powerful algorithms. This creates new cybersecurity and data privacy risks given the increased use of and access to personal data. Nevertheless, digital technologies enhance competition, thus enabling smaller firms to compete against larger ones, increasing access of citizens to previously out of reach markets. The Philippine Development Plan 2023–2028 emphasizes the full implementation of the Philippine Competition Act through strategies that allow businesses to leverage existing or emerging digital technologies. It will help businesses become more agile, innovative, and competitive by fostering an environment where anticompetitive practices are prevented or penalized, entry and re-entry of players are facilitated, and strategies to promote innovation are supported.