The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the transition to a digitally reliant world. While the digital transformation is expected to generate opportunities and benefits for businesses and consumers alike, new risks and challenges also emerge.

With the goal of capacitating legislators and their staff on the intricacies of these emerging issues, the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC), through the Office of Commissioner Johannes Bernabe and the Legislative Liaison Office (LLO), will be conducting its next Capacity Improvement on Competition Advocacy for Legislative Staff (CICALS) on 25 March 2021. Another session will also be conducted in April 2021 (final date to be confirmed later).

Following the successful CICALS in the Senate last December 2019 and in the House of Representatives last May 2020, this two-day webinar, entitled “CICALS Digiconomy”, intends to be a venue where experts can share their views and experiences in developing and implementing policies and regulations that can maximize the gains from the digital economy.

In partnership with Senate Committee on Finance and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), CICALS Digiconomy aims to capacitate both the staff of legislators and members of the Senate on detecting competition issues in the digital economy and proposing new policies or reviewing pending legislative measures and existing laws which may impact the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The CICALS is a webinar series on the basics of competition law and policy, benefits and applications of the competition law on businesses, and the powers and functions of the PCC. As a regular advocacy initiative of the PCC-LLO, CICALS is geared towards achieving the Commission’s strategic objective of reviewing potentially anti-competitive legislation and policies that may substantially prevent, restrict, or lessen competition in the market.

The webinar will start at 3:00 PM. For further inquiries, kindly e-mail