By Ellson Quismorio
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) gave a "strong" endorsement Wednesday, June 3, for the passage of a House measure creating the eCommerce Bureau, if only to help the agency resolve cases of online fraud.
“I would strongly recommend the passage of the bill because we need a complete registry of all the players in the eCommerce industry,” DTI Undersecretary Ruth Castelo told the House Trade and Industry Committee during its virtual hearing on House Bill (HB) No.6122, the proposed “Act protecting consumers and merchants engaged in Internet transactions, creating for this purpose the eCommerce Bureau and appropriating funds therefor.”
“Currently we have a short list, but there are hundreds selling online that do not even have any registration either with DTI or SEC (Security and Exchange Commission) or the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) and making profit out of the consumers,” Castelo said.
She further said that having an eCommerce Bureau would give a clearer answer as to which government agency should handle complaints regarding the rising number of online-based transactions in the country.
“Currently, it is the DTI Fair Trade and Enforcement Bureau that does that. We make no distinction between physical and virtual sale or transaction. It's also the Department that looks into this. But I would say that we really need the infrastructure and specific law that would identify which agency to handle this, especially now with the creation of the eCommerce Bureau, which we fully support."
Committee vice-chairman, Nueva Ecija 3rd District Rep. Ria Vergara quizzed Castelo regarding the performance of the Trade and Enforcement Bureau as far as resolving complaints are concerned.
“For those (online sellers) that are registered or can be physically found, we resolve almost 100 percent ...with the assistance of platforms such as Lazada, Zalora, etc.,” replied the DTI official.
“But for those that are not registered, those that we cannot find, we have to always seek the help of NBI (National Bureau of Investigation), PNP-CIDG (Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group) for their cybercrime division to locate the sellers.
“Unfortunately, most purchasers or buyers online would not wish to continue with the process because they will have to submit the devices that they used so that our enforcers can locate the sellers,” she explained.
Vergara aired her frustration earlier in the hearing over how authorities have seemed “helpless” in going after these scammers in cyberspace.
“The information I got is actually someone from the NBI. I have constituents who complain about being scammed by people who do business on the Internet and the NBI is helpless. All they can say is they disappeared or it was a fraudulent person,” she said.
Castelo said the DTI receives an average of 2,000 complaints a year, 40 percent of which involve online transactions.
$25-B industry
The Philippine Internet Economy – which covers eCommerce, online travel, online media, and ride hailing – is only bound to get bigger in the coming years, panel chairman Valenzuela City 2nd District Rep. Weslie Gatchalian said in his sponsorship speech for HB No.6122.
From a $7-billion economy last year, it is “expected to grow by more than three times to $25 billion in 2025,” he said. In 2015, the local virtual economy was valued at just $2 billion.
Gatchalian said the frenetic growth “is supported by data on the behavior of Filipinos,” who spend an average of 10 hours online according to studies. This is significantly higher than the average global Internet usage of six hours and 42 minutes, he noted.
From just 9 percent in 2009, Gatchalian said the country's internet penetration grew to 67 percent last year. This is indicated by the reported 73 million active Internet and social media users out of a population of 108 million.
The global Internet penetration average is 54 percent.
However, Gatchalian noted that the Philippines had the lowest gross market value in the Southeast Asian Internet Economy as far as the top six nations in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is concerned, posting just $7 billion in 2019. The highest was Indonesia with $40 billion.
“The average amount spent by a Filipino eCommerce user in 2019 was $18,” he said.