PBBM names new PCC commissioner

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has appointed lawyer Ferdinand Negre as the new commissioner of the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC). (PCO file photo)

MANILA – President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has appointed lawyer Ferdinand Negre as the new commissioner of the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC).

Marcos appointed Negre on Feb. 27, based on the list of new presidential appointees released by the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) on Thursday.

Under Republic Act (RA) 10677 or the Philippine Competition Act (PCA), the PCC shall be composed of a chairperson and four commissioners.

The chairperson and the commissioners have the rank equivalent of Cabinet secretary and undersecretary, respectively. They are appointed by the President for a term of seven years without reappointment.

The PCC is an independent quasi-judicial body mandated to implement the national competition policy and enforce PCA which serves as the primary law in the Philippines for promoting and protecting market competition.

Negre is a certified public accountant and worked as an auditor at SGV & Co. before taking up law.

He earned juris doctor degree from the Ateneo Law School in 1991 and obtained a post-graduate degree of Master of Intellectual Property at Pierce University in New Hampshire in 1993.

From 2004 to 2005, Negre attended a Post-Graduate Scholarship Program on Intellectual Property at the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center in Munich, Germany and at the Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute in London.

Negre also teaches different intellectual property laws at the Ateneo Law School where he chairs the Commercial Law and Intellectual Property Department.

He was a member of the Supreme Court Sub-Committee on Special Rules in Intellectual Property Cases.

Other appointments

Meantime, Gerald Divinagracia was designated as deputy director-general of the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA), while Grace Fernandez and Leonardo Tapia both assumed the post of Director IV at the same office.

Created by virtue of RA 11032, ARTA is the government agency mandated to monitor and ensure compliance of state departments and offices with the national policy on anti-red tape and ease of doing business in the country.

Marcos tapped Rhoda Caliwara and Lucila Tarriela as members of the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council (TIPC), both representing the employers’ sector.

He also appointed Temistocles Dejon Jr. and Gerard Seno as National TIPC members, representing the labor sector.

The National TIPC serves as the main consultative and advisory mechanism lodged with the Department of Labor and Employment – Bureau of Labor Relations.

The council is responsible for processing major issuances affecting labor, employment and other related concerns, as well as a clearinghouse for the recommendation and ratification or denunciation of International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions.

Other newly appointed government officials were Debbie Torres (Director IV at the Department of the Interior and Local Government) and Jose Albert Barrogo and Luz Marcelino (both Director III at the Department of Agriculture).

Marcos also signed their appointment papers on Feb. 27.