Solon fears US bill to hurt BPO boom

A lawmaker from Eastern Samar yesterday warned that a House bill filed in the United States Congress could affect some 400,000 call center employees here.

Evardone, chairman of the House committee on public information, said House Bill 3596 or the “Call Center and Consumers Protection Bill” filed last Dec. 7 by Reps. Tim Bishop (Democrat, New York), David Mckinly (Republican, West Virginia), Mike Michaud (Democrat, Texas) was aimed at discouraging US companies from outsourcing business.

Evardone said that since 2012 is an election year, many politicians in the US will attempt to push popular measures like the virtual killing of BPO outside the US given the high unemployment in the United States.

But the Eastern Samar lawmaker said that the Philippine government could avert such a catastrophic incident on Filipino all center employees by lobbying against the bill.

“We have to act immediately by sending a strong lobby team in the US. I believe this will kill the BPO industry in the country,” said Evardone.

Evardone said 400,000 Filipinos are relying their livelihood on BPO which generated $9 billion revenues last year or 4.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

He said the Philippines is number one in BPO in terms of voice information and number two in services.

“We have to protect and promote our BPO industry, which is now the largest in the whole world. We have already overtaken India in voice information technology-BPO. We are number two in the world in complex, non-voice services in range of sectors and services, like animation development and software processing,” said Evardone.

Evardone said BPO and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) remittances are key contributors in sustaining our economic growth and in minimizing the impact of US and European economic crisis.

“We need afford to lose our competitive advantage in the field of BPO. We need to protect, nurture and support the BPO industry, one of the main lifeblood of our economy,” said Evardone. –Gerry Baldo, Daily Tribune