The Philippine Competition Commission said Monday it welcomes the appointment of legal expert Lolibeth Ramit-Medrano as a new commissioner of the antitrust body.
Medrano will serve PCC until 2030.
Medrano’s 22-year public service record spans different technical and leadership roles, most recently as Undersecretary of the Office of the President and prior to that as director of the Bureau of Patents at the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines.
She was bestowed the 2020 Presidential Gawad Career Executive Service Award for her exemplary performance in government service. She spearheaded the Philippines’ designation as one of only 23 international search and preliminary examination authorities for patents in the world by the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Under her leadership, the Philippines was cited by the WIPO as among the top 3 most efficient international authorities in 2019.
She was also instrumental in successfully amending copyright provisions of the 2014 IP Code in Republic Act 10372 and is a member of the Supreme Court Sub-Committee for the Revision of the Rules of Procedure for the Intellectual Property Rights Cases.
Medrano served as the pioneer chairperson of the ASEAN Industrial Design Task Force and represented the Philippines in the international IP circuit such as the WIPO, World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation IP Experts Group and the ASEAN Patent Examination Cooperation Task Force.
She is a professor on intellectual property at the Ateneo De Manila Law School, San Beda Alabang College of Law and the UP Open University.
Medrano graduated cum laude, earning a degree in Public Administration from the University of the Philippines Diliman and obtained her law degree from San Beda College of Law.
She pursued her Masters in Politics and Public Policy as an Australian Development Scholar in Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia and Master of Laws specializing in Intellectual Property as an IPO scholar at the the Ateneo De Manila Law School.
This is complemented by her advanced IP and trade courses received from the WIPO and the World Trade Organization.
The appointment of Medrano forms part of the new administration at the PCC with a seven-year term or until 2030. She is joined by fellow commissioners Marah Victoria Querol and Michael Peloton who will hold office for five years or until 2028. As members of the commission en banc, they decide on the different market competition cases.
As the PCC anticipates renewed appetite for mergers, acquisitions and post-pandemic restructuring among firms this year, Medrano’s expertise in trade, IP and commercial law is seen to champion robust merger reviews, competition cases and market policies in aid of the recovering economy.
This comes at a time after the PCC Mergers and Acquisitions Office regained its merger review powers in September 2022.
PCC-MAO has since resolved 2 merger transactions and launched a motu proprio case in the pharmaceuticals sector in 2022.
The PCC is mandated to promote competition among businesses and enforce the broad powers of the Philippine Competition Act (PCA). Through fair competition, the PCC aims to foster business innovation, increase global competitiveness, and expand consumer choice to improve public welfare.
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