GMA laid successful model leading to BPO growth, says business processing leader
by Ben Rosario
October 2, 2014
Unable to bear President Aquino’s sustained derisions of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the former head of the country’s association of business processing leaders came out in the open to assail the incumbent chief executive’s accusations against his predecessor.
In a press statement, Oscar R. Sanez, former CEO of the IT and Business Processing Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) from 2007 to 2011, said that contrary to Aquino’s claim, it was Arroyo who “laid the successful model that led to the growth of the BPO industry” in the country.
Sanez took exceptions to Aquino’s reference to the Arroyo administration as a “lost decade.”
“It is disappointing to read about President Aquino’s frequent references to the term of President Arroyo as a ‘lost decade,’” Sanez said.
He called on Aquino to present a “more objective assessment of how his predecessors performed when he delivers his public pronouncements.”
Now a congresswoman representing Pampanga, Arroyo has been under hospital detention for nearly three years now on account of a conspiracy to commit plunder charge involving P266 million in intelligence funds of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.
The former President is being held with no bail while her alleged co-conspirators have been freed on bail, some of them barely a week behind bars.
Sanez stressed that the progressive BPO industry owes much of its growth to the former President because she laid a successful model for the industry.
“As the CEO of the BPAP from 2007 to 2011, I know how much the business process offshoring and outsourcing sector owes to Mrs. Arroyo. We are proud to describe ourselves as a successful model of real private-public partnership or PPP,” Sañez said in a statement.
The former BPO industry leader pointed out that industry figures, which are of official and public record, would show that the BPO grew impressively under the watch of Mrs. Arroyo because of her support.
“From only 2,400 call center workers in 2000, the BPO sector grew to nearly half a million workers by the end of 2009, PGMA’s last full year in office. The industry grew on the average by an astounding 65 percent per annum over the decade. Total export revenues generated by the IT-BPO industry grew from only $1.3 billion in 2003 to $8.9 billion in 2010,” he said.
According to Sanez, the growth was fuelled by the “support initiatives” of the former President.
Included among the support initiatives is government’s move to encourage the establishment of BPAP and the creation of the Commission on Information and Communication Technology-CICT. The latter is attached to the Department of Science and Technology.
Sanez said the Arroyo administration also provided investor support through the Board of Investment (BOI) and Philippine Econimic Zone Authority (PEZA), which included accrediting buildings used by the industry; driving regional initiatives under CICT (Cyber Corridor) and the Department of Trade and Industry’s Regional Operations and Development Group; completing infrastructure programs such as airports; and investing in training vouchers from TESDA worth over P800 Million from 2007-09 alone.