CHED official accuses Neri of stalling call center project

An official of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) said that the agency’s temporary chairman, Secretary Romulo Neri, and Commissioner Nona Ricafort were impeding a project that will produce potential call center agents out of the thousands of students of six state universities and colleges (SUCs).

Lawyer Julito Vitriolo, deputy executive director and acting chairman of the CHED’s bids and awards committee (BAC) which presided over the bidding of the agency’s controversial P300-million call center laboratory development project and its awarding to a four-company consortium last year, said that Neri and Ricafort are the “stumbling blocks” to the success of the project.

“They are blocking it. It’s already 90 percent complete. And we can soon train thousands of students to be call center agents,” Vitriolo told The STAR in a phone interview Monday.

Vitriolo maintained that the bidding process that was conducted to award the project to the consortium of E-Services Global Solutions Inc. (ESGS), Drishti Philippines Inc. (DPI), Information Transmission Computer Control Inc. (ITCC), and Hillmarc’s Construction Corp. was aboveboard.

Vitriolo said that Neri should not have issued an order suspending payments to the ESGS consortium and Ricafort should not have raised questions regarding the project.

Neri had recently ordered an investigation into the project to find out whether it was advantageous to government. The investigation later confirmed reported irregularities in the public bidding that was conducted by the Vitriolo-led BAC where only one consortium was pre-qualified and allowed to participate in the bidding.

“If we want to get the position of being the number one source of call center agents in the world, then we will have to work for it. And we need to work fast and think quick without too much politics,” he said in a press statement.

Vitriolo revealed that China is now on its sixth year of a 20-year English improvement and expansion program aimed at getting a share of the call center business.

He cited the observation of former US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone that the Philippines has lost potential investors from the United States who have decided to scout and invest in Indonesia and China because the country is trailing in the use of English.

A study was also reportedly conducted by CHED that showed that the Philippine market requires 260,000 seats by the end of CY 2007, providing approximately 780,000 jobs.

However, the hiring ratio of the BPO Contact Center (BPO-CC) is only two to four percent of the 400,000-plus graduating class throughout the Philippines.

Vitriolo said that unless graduating students are equipped with the proper tools, the Philippines would not be able to sustain the growth of the BPO-CC industry.