The Pinoy worker

While traveling recently, a news article buoyed me. In case you missed it, the article syndicated by The New York Times reported that the Philippines had overtaken India as the world’s call center capital, and even Indian companies were outsourcing their operations here.

Indian diplomats told me about this trend many months ago, explaining that international callers could not understand Indian English and preferred Filipinos’ American-style English, described as “lightly accented” in the NYT report.

With its 1.2 billion people, India still earns more than the Philippines from outsourcing, but the business is growing faster here. And it’s not because of cheap labor; entry-level pay for Pinoys is higher.

The reasons for the outsourcing, apart from the English? One is that we have better utility infrastructure, according to the report, which means corporate savings on generators and diesel fuel.

Our mass transportation is also better and our cities safer (even if Manila is the 128th “most livable city” out of 221 in the latest index), according to NYT, so companies don’t have to bus employees to and from work as in India.

And then there’s the human factor often cited by investors happy to do business here. Quoting an Indian executive, the report said the Philippines has “a unique combination of Eastern, attentive hospitality and attitude of care and compassion mixed with what I call Americanization.”

Maybe we are too harsh on our country and keep seeing a half-empty glass.

In Hong Kong a Swiss broadcast journalist told me on the last day of the Global Editors Network meeting last Wednesday that his relatives had just returned from a vacation in the Philippines, and had raved about the trip, particularly the beaches and the friendliness of the people.

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Filipinos’ English proficiency and hospitality were also noted by Telma Ortiz Rocasolano, deputy director of the Department of International Relations at the Barcelona Town Hall in Spain.

Telma, whose great-grandfather was born here, has lived in the Philippines and worked with non-government organizations even in Basilan.

“I’ve never felt unsafe in the Philippines,” even in Basilan, she said. In 2009, eight months pregnant, she returned to Spain to give birth. She said several of her Filipino friends flew to Spain to visit her.

Telma described Filipinos in Spain as “super kind – that’s something we very much appreciate.”

There are 80,000 Filipinos living in Spain, although the actual number could be as high as 100,000. The biggest concentration is in Barcelona, where about 8,000 Pinoys make up the fifth largest immigrant population after the Italians, Chinese, Ecuadorans and Pakistanis. More than half of the Filipinos have been in the city for five years and 96 percent are permanent residents.

About 30 percent of them own their homes, mostly apartments. They work in hotels, tourist resorts, and in private homes as domestic helpers and nannies. They earn an average of 844 euros a month (the minimum wage is 650 euros), working for 37 hours a week.

Pinoys in Barcelona, Telma said, “work very hard” and have strong solidarity, with most of them hailing from Batangas. At the Raval quarter where most of them live, the Pinoys have their own basketball league.

A Mass is held in Tagalog every Sunday at the San Agustin church in Barcelona by Fr. Bernie Alejo – “Padre Bong” to Pinoys, Telma told me.

English proficiency and natural friendliness have made Pinoys in demand in hotels and the tourism industry.

The same qualities have made Pinoy nannies in demand particularly in countries where English is not the first language and where parents want their children to learn it. This is true in Spain as well as in Hong Kong, which hosts one of the largest populations of Filipino workers.

English proficiency has also allowed our entertainers to break into the American market. In Hong Kong I saw a TV alert for an upcoming interview with Charice, native of Cabuyao, Laguna, where American pop music is played even at wakes.

Everywhere I turned in Hong Kong there seemed to be a Filipino worker – in my hotel, in the streets, at the airport.

Foreigners have often told me something that Filipinos have also observed: toss Pinoys into the proper environment and we work very hard to advance in life, we care for each other instead of trying to put one over the other, and generally follow the rules and obey the law.

Creating the proper environment is our biggest challenge.

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It’s good that millions of Pinoys are in demand worldwide and have found decent employment overseas, remitting billions of dollars annually to boost economic growth figures.

But it would be better if our people would not need to leave the country to find decent jobs. The social costs of the Philippine diaspora have been well documented.

Those billions in remittances have also been one of the biggest disincentives to reforms – social, political and economic. The remittances, and their role in strengthening the economy, guarantee that protectionist economic policies will remain in place, institutions will remain weak, and the ruling class will continue with business as usual.

That protected class will refuse to see that while the Philippines isn’t doing badly, other countries are doing much better. Open to reforms for the greater good and not just for a tiny elite, those countries are leaving us behind.

In Hong Kong, a Nepali newspaper editor told me that the Himalayan nation is in the process of amending its constitution to make Nepal more attractive for foreign investments. Narayan Wagle, editor-in-chief of Republica, was once arrested for defying the government. These days he no longer has to worry about press freedom. He said the situation has stabilized in Nepal and the nation wants to increase tourist arrivals, which last year stood at 900,000.

In the Philippines, business process outsourcing and tourism are two bright spots, but there’s still much room for improvement. We need to continue enhancing the environment to attract more job-generating investments.

Among other things, that can bring our workers back to their own country. It’s good that many of them are doing well overseas, but there’s no place like home.