The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is considering keeping the e-commerce trustmark as a voluntary requirement to address concerns of online sellers.

Trade Secretary Cristina Roque said she is open to making the requirement permanently voluntary, with her agency’s decision expected before the end of the year.

“Why not? I mean, we're open to whatever is really best for the consumers,” she said in an interview last week.

Last month, the DTI announced that it would no longer require the trustmark as a mandatory compliance document and instead made it voluntary until Dec. 31.

This was in response to mounting complaints against the trustmark as another burden to online sellers.

The maximum cost to register for the trustmark is ₱1,130, while micro businesses with total assets of less than ₱3 million would pay only ₱130.

The DTI said it is working to improve the policy to make it more “useful, fair, and helpful” for both consumers and businesses.

As provided under Republic Act No. 11967, or the Internet Transactions Act, the trustmark serves as a digital badge for both online platforms and merchants that comply with fair e-commerce practices.

It is meant to provide assurance of safety and security in internet transactions amid threats such as scams and other fraudulent activities.

This, according to Roque, is why the trustmark remains an important policy for the government, especially as complaints lodged with the DTI continue to rise.

In the first eight months, the DTI recorded more than 13,000 complaints related to internet transactions.

Roque said possessing the trustmark would give merchants a competitive advantage, likening it to how consumers would rather buy medicines approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) than those without.

“We just want the sellers to see the need for the trustmark and at least for the consumers to also trust the trust mark,” she added.

Roque said the trustmark will be one of the issues she will raise in a meeting with officials of e-commerce platforms this week.

Roque added that she will discuss the additional ₱5 processing fee that the country’s major online platforms recently imposed.

She will also ask them to take down listings of allegedly fraudulent items that her agency has been monitoring.