Obama call vs outsourcing has PH lawmakers worried

President Barack Obama. AFP

Two Filipino lawmakers are worried that President Barack Obama’s recent call for American businessmen to keep US jobs at home instead of outsourcing them to countries like the Philippines could spell the end of the call center business in the country.

House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II said the Aquino administration should closely monitor US House Bill 3596 entitled “Call Center and Consumers Protection Bill” which would encourage insourcing by American firms and penalize those dealing with business process outsourcing (BPO) firms.

Gonzales said he was worried this would curtail the growth of the BPO industry in the country, which is fueled mostly by American firms.

Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone shared Gonzales’ concern, pointing out that BPOs contribute close to $9 billion a year from roughly 800,000 call center agents. This is close to half of the $19 billion in annual remittances from five to 10 million overseas Filipino workers.

US HB 3596 imposes a $10,000 daily fine on US call center firms that do not identify their agents’ location.

“I think that being an election year, Obama has no choice but to advocate populist sentiments like insourcing. We must be ready for any eventuality because we don’t want to be surprised, especially on a very crucial economic contributor like BPOs,” said Gonzales.

Evardone said the Aquino administration must organize and send a lobby group to the US Congress to try and block passage of this bill.

“It’s about time that we take seriously this threat against our BPOs now that Obama has laid down a firm policy against outsourcing. Government agencies should not ignore this. We might wake up one day and find that the jobs in BPOs are already gone if we don’t act timely and decisively,” said Evardone. “P-noy (Aquino) might want to raise this issue  with Obama during his state visit to the US this year.”

Evardone said the Philippines could link up with countries like India, Mexico and Ireland which also have thriving BPO centers.