Anxious BPO investors starting to ask questions
MANILA — It's business as usual for the outsourcing industry, even if clients and investors are asking questions about the developments in the Philippines, in the wake of the Davao City bombing and the President's anti-US statements.
Benedict Hernandez, the industry is not threatened president of the Contact by the US elections in Center Association of the November. Philippines, said clients Hernandez explained started worrying about the that there are still no protectionist country's political environment measures that could when Duterte declared prevent US companies from the state of national emergency hiring the services of the local after the bombing of BPO industry. the Davao night market. The outsourcing industry
The local industry has is the country's second been able appease concerns biggest source of dollar income of their clients overseas so next to OFW remittances. far, Hernandez said.
Currently, the industry Last year, it generated is not seeing threats to the 1.2 million jobs and earned business with Duterte's antiUS $21 billion versus total OFW sentiments, since there remittances of $25.8 billion. are no changes in government "The reality is, we policies that may affect haven't seen protectionist the sector. measures that will force us
This also explains why companies to not operate in countries like the Philippines. That is one we're closely paying attention to but historically, [there's] a lot of rhetoric during the campaign but no translation in campaign," said Hernandez.
With the slew of anti-US remarks of President Duterte and issues of safety in the Philippines, he acknowledged that they have been asked questions on what's going on in the Philippines. "It's an opportunity for us to clarify any impact on policy - there's nothing. It's business as usual for companies and employees," he added.
Hernandez said they have not seen travel advisory changes among BPO companies and clients.
"It causes lots of questions and it's an opportunity for us to clarify on the ground," according to the CCAP head.
As for the peso, which hit 7-year lows this week, Hernandez said, "the trend has been pretty stable. The currency has been pretty stable over the years and recently is now weakening .... In reality we're export-oriented so a weaker peso is actually to our favor. When we convert our cost to find out what our price is, that [the weakening of the peso] becomes an advantage for us."
In reality, he explained, "we're not basing our business on the peso and US dollar. We just want a stable exchange rate and not something that fluctuates a lot."
According to Monchito Ibrahim, consultant at the Department of Information Technology and Communications, "there has been no change in policy so far. In fact, as far as policies concerned, there's been no change in policies whether it's incentives policy. And we intend to actually maintain this kind of working relationship with industry leaders."