Overseas Contract Workers (OFW) are considered to be the country’s modern-day heroes because of the huge remittances they send home that boost the country’s economy. Moreover, in their noble goal of providing better lives for their families, they sacrifice a lot by being away from their loved ones, by being alone and lonely at night, to work and interact with a foreign culture, in a distant foreign land.
There are nurses who work as caregivers, doctors who work as nurses, artists who work as singers, dancers, or general entertainers, engineers who work as technical support personnel, and even licensed teachers who work as domestic helpers. They try to raise their families from a distance. A few of them becoming oppressed laborers and slaves, sometimes coming home in crutches, physically and psychologically disabled. A number of them even come home in wooden caskets. The foreign remittances of these modern-day heroes sent through the formal channels range from US$6B – $8B (2006-2008) every year. This amount goes directly to their families, with the government getting only a certain percentage of it in the form of taxes. The net income that the government earns from these remittances is approximately P11.5 B each year. The foreign currency, of course, remains in the government coffers.
To show its concern over the OFWs’ wellbeing and plight, the government provides assistance in the form of contingency funds, helpdesks, and other support mechanisms. Philippine consulates in these foreign lands are also provided with an annual budget for this purpose. In addition, national-level politicians include OFWs’ concerns among their top priority projects. As there are millions of these OFWs, their votes, as well as those of their relatives, comprise millions, too.
In comparison, today’s contact center agents have their own form of sacrifices, too. They work during the so-called graveyard shift, risking limb and life to muggers, hustlers, and snatchers who, alongside them, under the cover of darkness, also ply their shady trade. These agents sometimes miss a considerable amount of sleep during the day because it is easier to get sufficient sleep during normal nighttime rest hours when everybody else is asleep and quiet. Daytime sleep is affected by all the hustle and bustle of people’s daytime trades, chores, and leisure and entertainment activities. Despite all these, agents are expected to perform to their optimum at work. Drawing quick breaths in-between high-frequency calls, they expel the same life-sustaining air during each customer interaction, with the same air-sucking cycle repeated almost a hundred times during each working night. Their job performance is measured meticulously by the so-called balanced scorecards, a strategic planning and management system which had evolved from the original design of Kaplan and Norton.
Moreover, despite their working at odd hours, contact center agents are still able to raise a family, continue their own college or graduate schooling, send their own children to school, attend community socio-civic activities, and even maintain leisure schedules for their own and their family’s wellbeing. A considerable number of female contact agents are solo parents, raising one or two kids. These agents dutifully carry out their work responsibility of serving the needs of the clients’ customers. They have to maintain customer satisfaction so that the clients would be able to maintain and expand their businesses at lower operating and administrative costs. This is how contact center agents contribute significantly, not just to the national, but also to the global economy; significantly fueling the economy as their numbers increase each year.
According to PEZA, the country now has 788 Contact Centers in over 20 key cities and with an approximate two hundred sixty thousand employees. The Board of Investments predicted this number to grow to 431,000. In an investment –friendly political environment, this prediction could materialize.
The government has tagged the contact center business as the "Sunshine industry" because of its very fast and massive expansion over the last 10 years. These contact center agents are the same people who make this sunshine industry one of the strong pillars of the Philippine economy. With an approximate 260,000 plus agents paying income taxes every year at an approximate average of P30,000 to P38,000 per agent per year, this translates to a net income of approximately P7.8B to P9.88B for the Philippine government. It is the net amount, and it’s fast approaching the figure earned by the government from the recorded official OFW remittances each year. With moderately strong purchasing power, contact center agents infuse money into the financial system steadily throughout the year, not just during certain peak seasons, such as Christmas, which is the seasonal market infusion by the family-beneficiaries of our OFWs. In addition, the government also benefits from the corporate taxes paid by every BPO/Contact Center company. The industry’s growth is assured, as long as investor-friendly executives are elected to top government posts.
So we have our modern-day heroes, the OFWs, with strong foreign currency remittances. And we also have our contact center agents, with their equally strong income tax payments and steady purchasing infusion into the market. Could they be the strong reasons this economy is staying afloat? Could they not be considered an emerging new wave of modern-day heroes? If this is so, perhaps the government can also establish the same support mechanism that it provides to OFWs. Currently, internal support and care is provided by the BPO/Contact Center companies to its employees. But outside of the work environment, in the dark streets of the cities, these agents who rub elbows with the hoodlums who also work during the same odd hours of the night, also need the protection of the government. Perhaps police outposts could be established in strategic areas for this purpose? The company- hired security guards are expected to protect the best interests of the company, and these workers, the agents, need some protection outside of the company premises. The local police is equipped with the mandate, the weapon, and the power to apprehend these criminals, or to engage them in hand to hand or armed combat.
Let us make our streets safe for all; and during the graveyard hours, let us make these streets safe for our emerging modern-day heroes. Heroes need not be dead. They can help the country better if they are alive. –copyright 2009, Ma. Francia O. Bengco
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