About that proposed anti-trust law

Fresh into the New Year 2011, we get to see a very good proposal coming from our dear friend, Rep. Eduardo “Eddiegul” Gullas who is pushing for the passage of a new and potent Anti-Trust Law. For starters, I’m a bit surprised why Rep. Gullas is seeking for a more potent anti-trust law. I never thought we had one in the first place. But since he is the lawmaker, I guess he knows that we already had an antitrust law, but it was probably inutile.

Anyway, in case you do not really know what the Anti-Trust law is all about, I checked with Wikipedia and it says, “Antitrust laws are intended to encourage competition in the marketplace. These competition laws make illegal certain practices deemed to hurt business or consumers or both, or generally to violate standards of ethical behavior. Government agencies known as competition regulators, along with private litigants, apply the antitrust and consumer protection laws in hopes of preventing market failure. The term “antitrust” was originally formulated to combat “business trusts”, now commonly known as “cartels.” Other countries use the term “competition law.”

There are two famous examples of antitrust cases in the United States that were made into movies. The first was a case against Standard Oil Company of John D. Rockefeller in the 1870-1880s where he supplied the oil and controlled the railroads that delivered the oil to the cities. This monopoly was deemed illegal by the US Supreme Court in the 1900’s. Unfortunately, I forgot the title of that real-life movie about John D. Rockefeller.

The other Antitrust story that became a movie was entitled “Dream Merchants” This story was about the United States vs. Paramount Pictures, Inc. which happened in 1948. In the old says when the motion pictures or moving pictures was in their infancy, film producers could not show their films unless they also operated theaters or moviehouses. To solve this problem, Paramount Pictures build another company called Paramount Theaters and operated these moviehouse all over the United States.

Back in those days, it was called a “Studio System” where film producers assured their pet stars of stardom because they controlled the film production and distribution of these films. The US Supreme Court deemed this as a monopoly declaring that “Movie studios could not also own movie theater chains.” Thus Paramount Pictures, Inc. was force to sell their Paramount Theaters.

Here in the Philippines, it means that Star Cinema, Viva Films or Regal Films for that matter could not operate or be a partner with movie house chains. In a more complicated industry, a potent antitrust law prevents companies from being in power generation and at the same time be in power distribution. While this may be happening today is due to the absence of an antitrust laws, I’m sure there will be a strong lobby against the proposal by Rep. Eddie Gullas when this measure is debated in the floor of Congress.

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With the New Year’s holidays over and done with, we’re back to the old grind just like everyone else. If there is any problem with too many holidays, it makes one lazy, more so that we entered the New Year with cold rains to dampen our spirit. But we can at least share some good news for the New Year 2011. First, that the ceasefire that the Philippine government agreed with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) together with the National Democratic Front (NDF) and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA) expired at midnight last night.

Hopefully with the expiration of the ceasefire, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) would now go full blast in searching and hopefully destroying those treacherous NPA rebels who killed 10 soldiers and a 9-year-old boy in Samar last Dec.14. It’s about time that the AFP turned the tables against the NPA who unfortunately almost always win in the propaganda wars played out by the news media.

One very positive note thought is the report coming from AFP spokesman Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta Jr. who said in a press briefing, “Since we declared the SOMO (suspension of offensive military operations), there has been an influx of surrenderees. As of now there are 14 from different areas.”

So now the question is, how will the AFP integrate these surrenderees back into society? We know for a fact that the NPAs won’t be happy about this development. I’m certain that they would send those dreaded Sparrow units to hunt down those former comrades of theirs who in Communist parlance no longer deserve to live for deserting their cause! Meanwhile, it would be comforting if the Aquino government came up with a study as to who really violated the Christmas truce? This information is important to us so that the Filipino people would know and realize it is futile to have such a truce with the CPP/NDF/NPA who does not honor their commitments.

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Email: [email protected]

 For starters, I’m a bit surprised why Rep. Gullas is seeking for a more potent anti-trust law. I never thought we had one in the first place. But since he is the lawmaker, I guess he knows that we already had an antitrust law, but it was probably inutile.

Anyway, in case you do not really know what the Anti-Trust law is all about, I checked with Wikipedia and it says, “Antitrust laws are intended to encourage competition in the marketplace. These competition laws make illegal certain practices deemed to hurt business or consumers or both, or generally to violate standards of ethical behavior. Government agencies known as competition regulators, along with private litigants, apply the antitrust and consumer protection laws in hopes of preventing market failure. The term “antitrust” was originally formulated to combat “business trusts”, now commonly known as “cartels.” Other countries use the term “competition law.”

There are two famous examples of antitrust cases in the United States that were made into movies. The first was a case against Standard Oil Company of John D. Rockefeller in the 1870-1880s where he supplied the oil and controlled the railroads that delivered the oil to the cities. This monopoly was deemed illegal by the US Supreme Court in the 1900’s. Unfortunately, I forgot the title of that real-life movie about John D. Rockefeller.

The other Antitrust story that became a movie was entitled “Dream Merchants” This story was about the United States vs. Paramount Pictures, Inc. which happened in 1948. In the old says when the motion pictures or moving pictures was in their infancy, film producers could not show their films unless they also operated theaters or moviehouses. To solve this problem, Paramount Pictures build another company called Paramount Theaters and operated these moviehouse all over the United States.

Back in those days, it was called a “Studio System” where film producers assured their pet stars of stardom because they controlled the film production and distribution of these films. The US Supreme Court deemed this as a monopoly declaring that “Movie studios could not also own movie theater chains.” Thus Paramount Pictures, Inc. was force to sell their Paramount Theaters.

Here in the Philippines, it means that Star Cinema, Viva Films or Regal Films for that matter could not operate or be a partner with movie house chains. In a more complicated industry, a potent antitrust law prevents companies from being in power generation and at the same time be in power distribution. While this may be happening today is due to the absence of an antitrust laws, I’m sure there will be a strong lobby against the proposal by Rep. Eddie Gullas when this measure is debated in the floor of Congress.

* * *

With the New Year’s holidays over and done with, we’re back to the old grind just like everyone else. If there is any problem with too many holidays, it makes one lazy, more so that we entered the New Year with cold rains to dampen our spirit. But we can at least share some good news for the New Year 2011. First, that the ceasefire that the Philippine government agreed with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) together with the National Democratic Front (NDF) and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA) expired at midnight last night.

Hopefully with the expiration of the ceasefire, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) would now go full blast in searching and hopefully destroying those treacherous NPA rebels who killed 10 soldiers and a 9-year-old boy in Samar last Dec.14. It’s about time that the AFP turned the tables against the NPA who unfortunately almost always win in the propaganda wars played out by the news media.

One very positive note thought is the report coming from AFP spokesman Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta Jr. who said in a press briefing, “Since we declared the SOMO (suspension of offensive military operations), there has been an influx of surrenderees. As of now there are 14 from different areas.”

So now the question is, how will the AFP integrate these surrenderees back into society? We know for a fact that the NPAs won’t be happy about this development. I’m certain that they would send those dreaded Sparrow units to hunt down those former comrades of theirs who in Communist parlance no longer deserve to live for deserting their cause! Meanwhile, it would be comforting if the Aquino government came up with a study as to who really violated the Christmas truce? This information is important to us so that the Filipino people would know and realize it is futile to have such a truce with the CPP/NDF/NPA who does not honor their commitments.

* * *

Email: [email protected]