The Politics of the Anti-Dumping Law of the Philippines

Bing Baltazar C. Brillo


2010   UPLB Journal, vol.  8, no. 1, pp. 17-29. 

 Keywords
Anti-Dumping, GATT-WTO, Policymaking,
Republic Act 7843, Republic Act 8752


Abstract

As a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and signatory to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-Uruguay Round (GATT-UR) Agreement, the Philippines has become a member of the international trade regime. The economic regime promotes the unhampered flow of goods and impels the country to open its economy to foreign goods. This scenario poses a risk to the local industry as foreign competitors, in their quest to penetrate and capture markets, can engage in dumping. To mitigate the risk inherent in the situation, the GATT-WTO regime encouraged countries to legislate an anti-dumping law. The rationale of the law is to establish a system of international trading where the playing field is even or level for all players. The anti-dumping law gives a country the right to adopt an adequate response to protect itself against unfair trade practices of other countries. This paper is about the evolution of the anti-dumping law in the Philippines, specifically the enactment of Republic Act (R.A.) 7843, and the transition to R.A. 8752. It concludes with the following observation on the policymaking experience: first, the enactment shows the satisficing nature and the protective tendency of the lawmakers; second, the enactment reveals the increasing influence and relevance of international organizations and regimes in domestic policymaking; and lastly, the evolution of the policy illustrates the dynamics of interagency competition vis-à-vis policy change.


Introduction

As a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) since January 1, 1995, and as a signatory to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-Uruguay Round (GATT-UR) Agreement, the Philippines has become a member of the international economic order, particularly in the area of international trade. The economic regime promotes the unhampered flow of goods and impels the country to open its economy, including industrial and agricultural markets, to foreign goods. The availability of imported goods in the domestic market results in stiff competition between the local and the foreign producers and manufacturers. This scenario poses a risk to the local industry as, foreign competitors, in their quest to penetrate the market and capture market share, can engage in unscrupulous practices, such as dumping.

Dumping as defined by the Tariff Commission (TC) “occurs when foreign producers sell their products to an importer in the domestic market at prices lower than in their own national markets, or at prices below cost of production, the sale or importation of which injures or threatens to injure a domestic industry producing like or comparable products or retards the establishment of a potential industry. It is a form of price discrimination between two national markets.” Dumping exists when key elements such as the following are present: (a) importation below the normal value, (b) material injury or threat of material injury to the domestic industry, and (c) a causal link between the injury and the importation. The high possibility of dumping in the domestic market poses a clear and present danger to the local industries.

To remedy the situation, countries are encouraged to legislate an anti-dumping law. Anti-dumping is a principle well recognized in international trade, as even the GATT-WTO regime requires member countries to enact the law (see Article 6 of GATT 1994). The rationale for the law is to establish a system of international trading where the playing field is even or level. The anti-dumping law gives a country the right to adopt an adequate response to protect itself against unfair trade practices of other countries. For instance, the law can impose a duty or tariff to even up the pricing mechanism between domestically produced goods and like products that are considered dumped products.

In the Philippines, a dumping law incorporated in Republic Act (R.A.) 1937, the Tariff and Customs Code, had been in existence since 1957. It dealt mainly with the imposition of dumping duty, and was considered inadequate in coping with the problem of dumping in the era of an open economic system. Following the mandate of the GATT-WTO regime, in 1993 the Ramos administration and the Ninth Congress agreed to repeal the existing dumping law. The intention of the policy actors was more to put up an infrastructure and support system necessary to protect the domestic industry rather than to diligently adhere to the GATT-WTO principles on anti-dumping practices. The effort resulted in R.A. 7843.

As R.A. 7843 was not entirely consistent with the GATT-WTO Agreement, in 1998 the Estrada administration and the Eleventh Congress took action to amend the prevailing anti-dumping law. This time the intention was primarily to comply fully with the mandate of the international agreement. The effort produced R.A. 8752. This paper is about the politics of the evolution of the anti-dumping law in the Philippines, specifically the enactment of R.A. 7843, and the transition to R.A. 8752. The study focuses on how each policy came about.


Factors of Policymaking

Policy is considered the essence of governance, as it is the concrete manifestation of government actions to address public issues, needs, or concerns. Policies, broadly described as “anything a government chooses to do or not to do” (Dye 1972: 2), often take the form of laws, statutes, regulations, or measures. The description implies that policymaking is a governmental activity where policy actors make formal decisions by enacting policies. Policymaking usually consists of agenda setting, discussion, formulation, and approval of the policy (Stein et al 2005, Lester and Stewart 2002, Howlett and Ramesh 1995), where each stage of the process involves interaction among policy actors.

Once made, a policy becomes a binding rule that regulates the actions of people and society. An existing policy continues to be enforceable until amended, changed, or revoked by legitimate authority through a legislative fiat. In some cases, the continuity of a policy is measured by its utility (Heywood 2002; e.g., see discussions on rationality model [Downs 1957] and on bounded rationality [Simon 1983]). The rule of thumb is that a policy persists as long as it is useful and relevant. In other cases, the demand for policy change may be set off from the outside (e.g., see discussions on lesson drawing [Rose 1991] and on policy transfer [Dolowitz and Marsh 2000]) by changing international condition, which can render existing policies unresponsive or obsolete. This mode has become pronounced in the era of economic globalization where international regimes have become regular and influential in policymaking, thereby making the process more susceptible to external pressures. One prominent manner of promoting policies from the outside is through “policy transfer” where policies from other countries are either adopted voluntarily by the host country or coercively imposed on it by a government or an international institution (Dolowitz and Marsh 1996).

The process of crafting or repealing a policy requires engagement of political actors (institutional, societal, or international actors). As the actors represent different interests, and each one tries to exert influence to shape the policy, the policymaking is essentially a political game. Analyzing the politics of the policy process requires the examination of the fundamental factors that contribute to policymaking (Reich 2002).

The first factor is the context, which refers to the surrounding conditions behind the move on the policy. In particular, the context pertains to the domestic and international political, economic, and social setting where the policymaking process takes place (Birkland 2001). The environment can obstruct or facilitate the mobilization of demand for the policy, as varying conditions can create incentives for the policy actors to take action. The context exemplifies the importance of changing conditions, as it can provide an ideal backdrop for setting the agenda of the policy.

The second is the stakeholders, or the parties involved in the policymaking. Stakeholders are key political actors whose participation in the policymaking process is critical. They are individuals, groups, or organizations that have vested interest in the policy being promoted (Schmeer 1999). Stakeholders can be politicians, government agencies, private persons, or even international organizations and regimes. Their interests should be taken into account, as they can potentially affect the dynamics of the process. Stakeholders’ participation (support or opposition) in pursuit of their interests lays down the landscape of the political arena for the proposed policy.

The third factor is rationalization, which refers to the arguments offered by policy actors to justify the policy. For arguments to be compelling and credible, they must be logical, relevant, and consistent with empirical evidence, and comprehensible to the public audience. The rationale for a policy must offer a plausible solution to a problem, issue, or concern. More importantly, it must be able to project the message that the policy serves the public well-being as well as demonstrate that the advantages of the policy far outweigh the disadvantages.

In a democratic political system, policy proposals go through an institutionalized policymaking process, where stakeholders are guaranteed a voice and platform to contest, and policy decisions are made through a vote of lawmakers. Careful evaluation of the factors leads to a better understanding of the intricacies of the dynamics of the evolution of the Anti-Dumping Law.


Republic Act 7843

The Context and Stakeholders

Since the formation of GATT in 1947 and its eventual replacement under the Uruguay Round by WTO in 1995, the postwar international trade has been delineated by the GATT-WTO regime. The global trade regime was anchored on liberalization as countries were encouraged to promote the unhampered flow of goods by opening their economies and markets. The regime’s principal aim was to remove the major impediments to international trade (Cohn 2008). This practice was put in operation by obliging countries to lower their tariffs and duties on traded goods. This liberalized arrangement, which in general does not put any limitation on imports, immensely increased the volume of the global exchanges of goods.

After winning a close election in the Philippines in 1992, President Fidel V. Ramos launched an ambitious economic reform program anchored on economic liberalization. In trade, the Ramos administration embraced the prevailing GATT-based global trade regime. To synchronize its program with the international trade regime, the Government started implementing liberalized policies, such as deregulation, privatization, and opening up to foreign investments; and enlisted the country with the GATT-UR Agreement (De Dios and Hutchroft 2003).

Anticipating Senate ratification of the GATT-UR Agreement in the later part of 1994 (following the Constitutional requirement that the Senate needs to ratify an international treaty entered into by the Philippine Government), interested parties appealed to the Government to take action to provide safety nets for the local industry. The apprehension was premised on the drastic reduction of tariffs on imports, which would result in the influx of imported goods to the country. Considering that many imported goods are cheaper than locally produced goods, the domestic economy, particularly the industrial and agricultural sectors, could be severely affected. If an enterprise could not adjust, then it would not survive foreign competition, and business closures and mass unemployment would result.

In principle, the vulnerability of local businesses against foreign competitors is acceptable in an environment of fair competition. As an open economic system, however, the GATT regime is prone to the practice of dumping. Dumping per se is not bad as flooding the market with cheap imported goods benefits consumers and forces local manufacturers to review their costing and be efficient. But when predatory pricing is employed to penetrate the market and competition is eliminated and deliberately destroyed to gain a market share— deceitfully putting the local producer out of business— then the practice is unacceptable. The likelihood of the prevalence of this practice after the adoption of the GATT-UR Agreement and the perceived inadequacy of the existing anti-dumping law in safeguarding local industries from unfair foreign competition fueled the move to repeal R.A. 1937, in particular, Section 301 Part 2, Title II, Book I of the Tariff and Custom Code.

The executive agencies at the forefront of the effort to repeal the anti-dumping law were the Department of Finance (DOF), the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Bureau of Customs (BOC), and the National Tax Research Center (NTRC). The Government agencies were amply supported by the main business umbrella group— the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI). As the interest of its members was on the line, the PCCI collaborated with the agencies in preparing the draft of the repealing law. The draft became the template of the bills filed by the lawmakers in Congress.

To summarize, the Ninth Congress opened the committee hearings on 16 March 1993 in the Senate. Senate Bills no. 284, 357, and 1905 were heard by the Committee on Ways and Means, chaired by Senator Ernesto Herrera. In the House of Representatives, the committee hearings on House Bills no. 658, 4626, 13862, and 14096 started on 8 October 1992 in the Committee on Trade and Industry, chaired by Representative Roilo Golez, and on 16 November 1994 in the Committee on Ways and Means, chaired by Representative Exequiel Javier. Pursuant to the provisions of Section 26, paragraph 2 of Article VI of the Constitution, President F. Ramos certified the anti-dumping bill as urgent in both chambers on 22 November 1994. The Senate hearings yielded Committee Report no. 713 on Senate Bill 357, which was approved on Second and Third Reading on 12 December 1994. The House hearings resulted in Committee Report no. 972 on House Bill 14177, which was approved on Second Reading on 23 November 1994 and on Third Reading on 29 November 1994. The bills were reconciled and approved by the Bicameral Conference Committee on 14 December, and ratified by the Senate and the House on 19 December 1994. The new anti-dumping law was formally signed by President F. Ramos on 21 December 1994, and became R.A. 7843.


The Rationale for Republic Act 7843

Early on in the Congressional deliberations, the weakness of the existing dumping law in R.A. 1937 became apparent. During the committee hearings, Senator E. Herrera revealed that “during the ten-year period from 1977 to 1987, 41 dumping cases were filed, 30 of these were dismissed by the Tariff Commission, and only one case got a positive finding from the Department of Finance.” The implication was that in its present form the anti-dumping law as a defensive or relief mechanism was seemingly not working. Worse, the weakness of the application of the law was expected to be further aggravated with the implementation of the GATT-UR Agreement. As the anti-dumping law was already wanting in the current economic setup, certainly, the law would be more ineffectual in the transition to an open economic system.

Overall, the move to repeal the law had two objectives— the first was to craft a law that abides by the GATT-UR Agreement, and the second was to preempt the consequences of the said international agreement. As there was the possibility that the two objectives may not harmonize on all aspects, the dilemma of the legislators was how to balance them by crafting a law that adheres to the principles of GATT and at the same time provides enough leeway for the government to shield the local industry against aftereffects.

In the case of a conflict between the two objectives, the prevailing sentiment among the lawmakers was to give precedence to the latter. The repeal process was considered more as an expression of commitment to the local industry, in particular to the agricultural and industrial sectors, than compliance with the commitment to the international agreement. Senator Gloria Arroyo, a co-sponsor of the anti-dumping bill, contended that the primary purpose in repealing the law was to set up a safety net to help the local industry cope with the changes brought about by the GATT regime, and secondarily to align with the GATT mandate. The argument was anchored on the assessment that the concern for the protection of the domestic industry was immediate, while governments usually had at least five years to comply with the GATT requirements on anti-dumping.

The intent of the legislators was to quickly enact an anti-dumping law tilted toward the domestic industry before the formal ratification of the GATT-UR Agreement, and to amend the law again after several years to make it consistent with the commitments to GATT. As Senator Orlando Mercado stated, “while we will ultimately need to harmonize our anti-dumping law with the relevant provisions of the GATT-Uruguay Round should we ratify the treaty, that process of compliance may take a while.” The strategy was for the Government to buy time to enable the local industry to make the necessary adjustments and preparation against foreign competition.

As to the content of the anti-dumping bill, there were two main issues in the amendment: one was the issue of jurisdiction over anti-dumping cases, and the other was the bond requirement. The first issue was basically whether dumping was a trade or fiscal concern. If it was primarily a fiscal concern, then the Secretary of Finance would have responsibility over the cases and the provision in R.A. 1937 would be retained. If it was principally a trade concern, then the Secretary of DTI would have jurisdiction and the provision in R.A. 1937 must be changed. The proponents on the side of DTI argued that the law was first and foremost intended to protect local industry; hence, it was clearly within the domain of the agency. Second, the DTI was in a better position to determine the condition of an industry, particularly when ascertaining unfair competition or injury caused by dumping, as the agency would have better information, logistics, facilities, network, and expertise. This position was fervently supported by the senators, particularly by Senator G. Arroyo who was a former undersecretary of DTI.

On the other hand, the proponents on the side of DOF argued that although DTI might have some advantages, still the violations in dumping cases were fundamentally a fiscal matter. Second, the institutional and functional bias of DTI, which is the promotion of domestic industry, may create doubt in the objectivity of its decision. In addition, by giving the jurisdiction to DTI, there was a danger that other countries might interpret the move as blatant protectionism for the local industry; hence, it might invite retaliatory measures against Philippine exports. DOF maintained that they had the advantage of being perceived as a more neutral body in deciding dumping cases and that there was no sufficient or cogent reason for the transfer. This position was defended by the members of the House. For instance, Representative E. Javier, arguing for DOF in the Bicameral Conference deliberations, said: “we beg to disagree on the part of the House because the imposition of dumping duty is a customs matter and therefore it should be the Secretary of Finance.”

The second issue revolved around the proposal to impose a stiffer bond requirement for the release of imported goods on which a dumping protest is filed. The proposal was to abandon the practice of accepting a surety bond and to require a cash bond instead. The latter is deemed more effective because it could deter importers from bringing in imports that may be the subject of dumping cases and discourage unfair trade practices. Moreover, according to BOC, the cash bond also prevents importers from absconding upon the release of their goods and provides assurance that the government and the injured party could collect indemnity as well as the dumping duty plus the correct amount of duties and taxes in case dumping was established.


Republic Act 8752

The Context and Stakeholders

In mid-1998, four years after the enactment of R.A.7843 and the affiliation to the GATT-UR Agreement, calls were made to amend the prevailing anti-dumping law. Earlier in the Tenth Congress, a bill had been filed to repeal the law, but the bill did not prosper because of lack of time. In the Eleventh Congress, the move to amend R.A. 7843 was made, citing the need for the country to sufficiently comply with the commitment under the GATT-WTO Agreement. It was also noted that while preparing for the GATT-UR ratification, and in its bid to immediately extend protection to the local industry, the Ninth Congress hurriedly passed the anti-dumping law in 1994. As a consequence, the law lacked clarity and contained provisions inconsistent with the GATT-WTO Agreement when it finally came into the picture.

After the Senate ratification of the GATT-UR Agreement and after the Philippines became a full-fledged member of WTO, in principle the anti-dumping law embodied in the international agreement became part of Philippine laws. The Government, as a signatory, needed to comply with the treaty; otherwise, the country risked being criticized as well as being recipient of complaints from the international economic body, other countries, and foreign businesses. For instance, Commissioner Anthony Abad of the Tariff Commission (TC) warned that although in principle our local laws take precedence over international laws, in cases of violation of the anti-dumping agreement under WTO, an aggrieved contracting party that is a member of WTO has a cause for action for dispute settlement at the international level. If there was no compliance with the requirements of the international regime, the Dispute Settlement Board of WTO would decide the case against the Philippines. To stave off the possibility of international disputes and repercussions, the Estrada administration gave its full backing to the move to repeal R.A. 7843.

The move began when the executive agencies in the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) meeting identified repealing the anti-dumping law as a priority measure. The government agencies leading the repeal process were DOF, DTI, BOC, TC, Department of Agriculture (DA), and National Economic Development Authority (NEDA). Except for DA and NEDA, the other government agencies were also the main participants in the deliberations on R.A. 7843. As in the past, there were support and participation from the business sector. Seeing that the interests of their members were again on the line, the main umbrella group of the local businesses, such as PCCI and the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI), actively engaged in the policy deliberations.

PCCI and FPI tried to skew the crafting of the law to favor the preference of local businesses. For instance, the President of FPI, Mr. Antonio Garcia, suggested transferring the burden of proof to the importer rather than to the domestic company, as he pointed out the difficulty of gathering the necessary data for domestic companies to establish proof in seeking redress from the Anti-Dumping Law. He argued that “the biggest problem that many local industries find in terms of determining [the] dumping, is the establishment of domestic price in the country of origin,” as “the burden of proof is always on the domestic firm rather than the importer.” Obviously, the proposal not only was biased for the local industry, but also was a move to protect the industry by returning to the old arrangement. The proposal was untenable as it contradicted the GATT-WTO mandate. As explained by Commissioner A. Abad, under WTO the burden of proof was deliberately shifted to the local industry:

The problem of the dumping cases under the old Dumping Law prior to Uruguay Round ratification was that the burden of proof used to be with the importer or the exporting country to prove. In other words, imports are presumed guilty until proven innocent. So there was an incentive on the part of lawyers involved in the case to just delay the case so that the cash bond will stay in place. That’s why all this time, we’ve had long cases.

The legislators took offense at the FPI’s proposal, as they deemed such move as an attempt to create an uneven playing field favoring local businesses and at the expense of importers, foreign businesses, and Filipino consumers. In reprimanding the local business group, Senator J. Enrile called on them to take responsibility and not to depend on the government for protection all the time. He stressed that:

We are not adopting here a system of protectionism. We are willing to give some degree of protection to our industries within the context of our treaty commitments and within the context of what is considered for the national good.

Thus, the amendment must not only adopt a certain degree of fairness to all stakeholders, but also embody the international commitment of the country.

To summarize, the Eleventh Congress opened the committee hearings on 14 August 1998 in the Senate and 2 March 1999 in the House of Representatives. Senate Bills no. 87, 763, and 765 were heard by the Committee on Ways and Means, chaired by Senator J. Enrile, and House Bills no. 22, 553, 3283, and 5999 were heard jointly by the Committee on Trade and Industry, chaired by Representative M. Punzalan, and the Committee on Ways and Means, chaired by Representative H. Teves. The Senate hearings yielded Committee Report no. 1 on Senate Bill 763, which was approved on Second and Third Reading on 1 and 29 December 1998, respectively. The House hearings resulted in Committee Report no. 319 on House Bill 7612, which was approved on Second and Third Reading on 3 June 1999. The Bill was certified as urgent in both chambers by President Joseph Estrada, pursuant to the provisions of Section 26, paragraph 2 of Article VI of the Constitution. Senate Bill 763 and House Bill 7612 were reconciled and approved by the Bicameral Conference Committee on 13 July, and ratified by the Senate and the House on 15 July 1999. The new anti-dumping law was formally signed by President J. Estrada on 12 August 1999, and became R.A. 8752.


The Rationale for Republic Act 8752

Overall, the intent in amending R.A. 7843 was to cure the perceived deficiency of the anti-dumping law. The amendment addressed three basic concerns. The first was the need to make the law adhere closely to the mandates in the GATT-UR WTO Agreement on Anti-Dumping Practices. The issue was conformity, which was to align the domestic law with the international treaty. The second was the need to redraft the text of the law to make it clearer, logical, and simpler to implement. The issue was workability, which was to make the law easier to carry out. And the third was the need to strengthen the rules governing the investigation of anti-dumping cases. The issue was to toughen the anti-dumping mechanism against violators.

In the deliberations, DTI, NEDA, and TC admitted that the current form of the anti-dumping law was not consistent with GATT-WTO. TC identified the following as inconsistent provisions that needed to be revised:

• withholding of the release of questioned importation pending the determination of a prima facie case of dumping;
• imposition of a provisional measure immediately upon the finding of a prima facie case, effective up to the final determination of dumping;
• inclusion of substitutes in the definition of like products;
• country-specific application of anti-dumping duty;
• limiting to 10 days the period of submission of replies to a questionnaire; and
• retroactive application of definitive anti-dumping duty on all importations within 150 days immediately preceding the filing of the protest (see Committee Hearings in the Senate and House of Representatives).

TC also admitted in the committee hearings that the Philippine Government had already made a commitment to WTO that it would take action to amend the provisions.

In improving the workability of the anti-dumping law, the main problem raised was that the current anti-dumping law was replete with vague provisions. Senator J. Enrile, the principal sponsor of the amending bill, declared that “the purpose of this revision is to make the law clearer. Republic Act 7843 appears to be rather cumbersome to implement and we [will try] to make the proposed revision simpler and in accord with the provisions of existing treaty that we have adhered to.” For instance, the law did not follow closely the technical terms used in the agreement. Senator J. Enrile disclosed that in defining the injury that the domestic industry might suffer, instead of using “threatening to cause material injury,” which is the globally accepted term, the law used a very vague and untested phraseology—“which might injure, or retard the establishment of, or is likely to injure an industry producing like articles.” As a consequence, the purpose of the law, which was to provide protection to the domestic industry, was defeated by its complexity. Thus, there was a need to simplify procedures and to establish common legal provisions consistent with the internationally accepted terminology in the anti-dumping law.

In strengthening the anti-dumping mechanism, Senator J. Enrile identified two major weaknesses of the current anti-dumping law. One was the severity of the burden of proof required of the domestic industry in proving dumping. Thus, the amendment intended to ease the burden of proof on the side of the domestic industry. The other weakness was the issue of venue for the filing of a petition for dumping; R.A. 7843 allowed a petition to be filed either with the Secretary of Finance or with the Secretary of Trade and Industry. The lawmakers questioned why the Secretary of Finance came into the picture, when the said Secretary obviously had no technical capability to determine the levels of production, pricing, markets, and the volume of supply and demand. To address that weakness, it was proposed that cases involving industrial goods should be handled by the Secretary of Trade and Industry, and those involving agricultural goods should be handled by the Secretary of Agriculture.


Conclusion

The evolution of the anti-dumping law can be seen as part and parcel of the broader government program to promote economic development. The post-EDSA Philippine governments have climbed on the bandwagon of economic liberalism. Thus, in trade the main strategy is to adopt an open economic system that promotes exchanges among countries. In line with fully integrating economic policy with the international community, the Ramos administration decided to participate in GATT and sign up with WTO. This course of action was sustained and continued by the succeeding government, the Estrada administration. Under the two administrations, the story of the evolution of the anti-dumping law from the original law— from R.A. 1937 to the first amendment to R.A. 7843 and eventually to R.A. 8752— highlights the following observation.

First, the enactment of R.A. 7843 shows the satisficing nature and the protective tendency of the lawmakers, as they try to balance the country’s international commitment and their inherent obligation to safeguard domestic interest. The satisficing nature pertains to the legislators’ attitude of passing something just to comply with the international treaty, but without really intending to fully comply with it; while the protective tendency refers to the preference of the policy actors to skew the law in favor of the local industry. Both inclinations were manifested in the amending process, as the primary consideration was to pass a law that would give more time for the affected local businesses to adjust, rather than to candidly comply with the mandates of the GATT-UR WTO Agreement. This disposition was shown when the legislators and the executive agencies (e.g., DTI and DOF) worked in partnership with PCCI to craft an anti-dumping law that would give more protection to the domestic industry. The display of strong concern for the domestic industry that would be affected is understandable; as politicians, lawmakers have the natural inclination to cultivate and not alienate local support. This approach was reinforced by the existence of a time lag of several years for the Philippine government to fully comply with the international agreement. In effect, R.A. 7843 was intended to be a “temporary” law, which was expected to be amended later in the future.

Second, in contrast, the enactment of R.A. 8752 reveals the increasing influence and relevance of international organizations and regimes in the domestic policymaking process, specifically economic policymaking. The policymaking process was shaped from the outside, as the policy actors’ primary concern was to enact an anti-dumping law consistent with the GATT-UR WTO mandate. This disposition was shown when the legislators fended off attempts by PCCI and FPI to skew the crafting of the law to unduly favor the preference of local businesses. Thus, the lawmakers ultimately became less concerned with the interest of a particular sector— domestic industry— and took a determined effort to ensure conformity to the law. The repeal process was grounded on the acceptance by all the stakeholders of the inevitability of the international agreement, and the Philippine Government had no other recourse but to comply.

Lastly, the evolution of the policy illustrates the dynamics of interagency competition vis-à-vis policy change. As the executive agencies saw the repeal process as an opportunity to expand their domain, the bureaucratic battle focused on the quest to protect and expand the scope of their authority. In R.A. 7843, the “skirmish” was on the issue of responsibility between DOF and DTI. The former wished to retain jurisdiction based on the mandate provided by R.A. 1937, while the latter aimed to expand the agency’s role by taking authority over anti-dumping cases. The dispute spilled over to Congress, with the House of Representatives backing DOF and the Senate supporting DTI. The disagreement was settled through a compromise where both agencies shared jurisdiction.

In R.A. 8752, the question was who among the agencies had the capacity to determine dumping. The lawmakers agreed that DTI had the capacity to determine dumping when it involved industrial goods, but doubted the technical capacity of DOF. Since dumping usually involves industrial and agricultural goods, the legislators decided to give DA the responsibility for determining dumping of agricultural goods. Thus, in the final draft of the law, the power to determine a prima facie case of dumping was given to either DTI or DA, while DOF maintained authority on the financial aspect of the anti-dumping law.

The evolution and enactment of the Anti-Dumping Law demonstrate the intricacies of contemporary policymaking in the Philippines under the “shadow” of the GATT-WTO regime. The enactment of the law exemplifies the subtleties of the process, as it shows the engagements of the many interlocking actors and interests behind the law.



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