What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

We have been supporting the company’s vision of nation-building and creating economic opportunities by providing accessibility of the Filipinos to other parts of the country and delivering basic services and ease of transportation through infrastructure projects.

Among others, it has heavily invested in developing and completing an airport project which aims to decongest the country’s current primary airport; invested in trains to be used for its mass transit system project; continues to expand and improve its existing toll road projects; and has added more toll road projects to improve connectivity and mitigate road congestion between the National Capital Region and its neighbouring provinces.

Why are in-house lawyers well-placed to drive change in their organisations?   

Any lawyer can apply the law to the possible limitations, consequences, advantages or disadvantages of corporate or business actions or inactions. However, as the practice becomes more industry specialised, in-house lawyers are placed in a position where they are able to focus more on the relevant laws that regulate their business.

The role of an in-house lawyer has now become diverse and is no longer limited to compliance or contract reviews. Lawyers are slowly becoming part of the decision-making process for executive management decisions and can render advice that steer business choices or implement solutions that become advantageous to the company.

Additionally, since in-house lawyers can appreciate internal processes, the dynamics of key management personnel, and how decisions are arrived at, they become well suited to providing advice beyond legal issues, while navigating these corporate realities.

What are some of the main legislative or regulatory changes that have impacted you?

Prior to Covid-19, the primary method of toll collection in our country was on a manual and cash transaction basis. Only a minimal percentage of motorists used the electronic toll collection system, particularly because this mode was merely on a voluntary.

While Covid-19 paralysed the world, it also modernised the Philippines toll collection system; the toll road regulator was forced to impose completely cashless toll collection on all toll road companies and concessionaires in the Philippines, within a short time. There was a sudden influx of motorists utilising technology to comply with a government directive for contactless transactions to prevent the spread of the virus.

Consequently, legislators called on the transportation department to speed up the full implementation of toll interoperability among toll road concessionaires, with the goal of making travel across toll roads in the country more convenient for motorists.

In the Philippines, large infrastructure projects are mostly undertaken through public-private partnerships, and as a result, projects are awarded to different private entities or corporations. Thus, interoperability entails finding a financially and technologically acceptable arrangement to connect with the different systems of the various toll road concessionaires and operators, while still being able to comply with the relevant local and national tax or laws because of the government directive.