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http://www.philstar.com/business/2015/03/09/1431460/cartels-monopolies-forever
My column last Friday on the book of General Jose Almonte which covered among others, his fight
to break-up the PLDT monopoly, drew a reaction from an old friend from my UP days. Raymond
Altarejos is now a New York-based entrepreneur who has invested in local call centers.
According to Ray, if telecom was not deregulated by Ramos, we would have a smaller BPO industry
today. . . Cost of an E1 bandwidth went down from $110k per month in 1992 to $30k by 1998. Now,
an E1 costs $250 a month. Our BPO industry sprinted ahead as competing carriers raced to deliver
fiber optic lines to Visayas and Mindanao. Now Cebu, Bacolod, Iloilo and Davao are vibrant BPO
centers.
Rays comment made me search for a column Ciel Habito wrote last year which pointed out how the
telecom industry, broken up by FVR seems to be consolidating again.
The New York Times recently ran an article on how infrastructure inadequacies in the Philippines
erode the nations growth prospects. Among these is information and communication technology,
wherein it was recently widely reported that the Philippines has both the slowest and costliest
Internet in the region.
Not a few see a link between this and the fact that the telecoms industry, coming from the vibrant
competition that marked the 1990s, has reconsolidated back to a situation where competition is
again widely seen to be lacking.
It must therefore be government policy to ensure adequate competition in the productive sectors of
the economy. Many other countries, our most dynamic South East Asian neighbors included, already
have strong legal frameworks that counter monopoly and unfair trade practices.
Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1
Having a competition law is in fact among the agreed measures in pursuit of the Asean Economic
Community, and I see it as an embarrassment that we are the only country among the original five
Asean members that has yet to enact one.
Is it any wonder that our rapid economic growth has yet to be felt by the wider mass of the
population, and that we also have the most lopsided wealth and income distribution in our part of the
world?
My sentiments exactly! In fact, the passage of that competition law is the subject of frequent
discussions between me and Asec Gernomino Indian Sy who heads DOJs small Office of
Competition.