VIDEO:

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Speech
of
His Excellency Benigno S. Aquino III
President of the Philippines
At the inauguration of EXL Service Philippines Site II

[Delivered at the Mall of Asia Complex, Pasay City, on January 11, 2012]

Thank you. Please sit down.

Undersecretary Chris Panlilio; Mr. Rohit Kapoor; Mr. Jaideep Pradhan; Mr. Rembert de Villa; Representative Emy Calixto-Rubiano; officials and employees of EXL Service Philippines and of course Aetna; fellow workers in government; honored guests:

Good afternoon.

I depend on my staff a lot. There are praises from groups that tell me they are surprised at my command of the facts and the figures, and that is, of course, dependent on the quality of the output of the staff that supports me. Unfortunately, today, and normally, when they give me erroneous data, I tend to get mad. [Laughter] But today, I was pleasantly surprised when Mr. Kapoor corrected me that they are expanding their business, not by 30 percent but rather by 70 percent. So in this case, my staff will be given a pass on their error. [Laughter] And I assume it’s also indicative of the quality of the barong of Mr. Kapoor, which is a lot better than what I’m wearing [laughter and applause] that they do intend to stay in the Philippines for a very long time, and we want to make sure—to prove to you that this was a right decision. Again, welcome. Thank you.

I’d like to start by wishing everybody a Happy New Year. It has only been ten days since 2012 began, and I am pleased to already be attending an inauguration such as this.

Today has been turning out to be a really good day. The stock market, I understand, has broken a new record, and they expect to break that new record in a very short period of time.

As you may know, we Filipinos have certain beliefs about the New Year. It is those of us who are younger and are eternally optimistic. We believe that jumping right when the clock strikes 12 on New Year’s Eve will help us grow a little taller in the coming year, or that switching on all the lights in the house ensures that the coming year will be bright. There are even some who scatter coins around the house because they believe it means that more money will be in store for them in the coming year.

I am glad that we are starting this year not just by jumping when the clock strikes 12 and not just by placing coins in strategic positions around the house, but also by having a renowned business like yours expand operations in our country. This inauguration promises a boost to the economy, particularly in terms of more jobs for our countrymen, and the psychic value of allowing us to be more optimistic about the year to come. This is a very good start for 2012, and for that: again, please accept my gratitude. I am told there is even more reason to be grateful: EXL aims to further expand investments here—and here goes again my staff—by around 30 percent per year over the next five years. We will be happy if it’s 70 percent for the next ten years [laughter], and that, of course, is really good to hear.

It is hard not to take notice of the BPO sector in the Philippines. Your industry exerts enormous influence on our economy and in the lives of many of our countrymen. It accounted for more than 525,000 full-time jobs in 2010, and received several awards and citations. Six cities in our country were included in the Top 100 Cities in the World for Outsourcing Report made by Tholons Incorporated. The Global Locations Trend 2010 Report compiled by IBM says that our country is the world leader in terms of jobs for shared services and BPO services. And these are only two of many distinctions that, so far, have been received. The BPO sector has successfully showcased the skills of Filipinos to the world.

EXL has been among those companies whose operations here have truly intended to maximize the capabilities of Filipinos. In addition to traditional contact centers, you have been moving higher up the value chain by providing more and more sophisticated services. You are the first BPO company to develop an international clinical management capability in the Philippines for a major health insurer, and we are hopeful that this trend will continue. Filipinos are known to be creative, resourceful, and fast learners, and through companies like you, the world is coming to discover that for themselves.

Since I assumed office, many have expressed renewed confidence in our country. But as I’ve always said in inaugurations like these, there is no greater expression of confidence than actually doing business here. Your expansion is further proof that our country is truly changing—proof that our country is becoming more economically stable, more profitable, and more attractive to investors.

Rest assured that as you continue doing business here, we will continue doing what we can to make things easier for you. We want, first of all, to make certain that you are able to hire enough qualified personnel. That is why we launched the Industry-based Training for Work Scholarship Program (I-TWSP) under the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, which grants free training for potential BPO workers in the contact center, software development, animation, and medical transcription sectors.

As of January 4, 2012, we’ve released more than 140 million pesos of the 500 million pesos allocated to the I-TWSP for the BPO sector under the Disbursement Acceleration Program. This is equivalent to over 23,000 scholarships. And we’ve been continuing to work with the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) in the joint management and implementation of this program.

As for the regular fund of the Training for Work Scholarship Program, we’ve released more than 15 million pesos out of the 20 million pesos previously granted to BPAP. This has allowed us to give scholarships to more than 1,600 Filipinos.

The Information and Communications Technology Office under the Department of Science and Technology has also been working to improve the English proficiency of our college students to make it easier for them to be employed in the BPO industry.

We are waging a war on poverty, and areas outside Metro Manila remain among the main battlefronts. That is why we have also been working to promote Next Wave Cities—ICT hubs to provide investment opportunities outside of the capital. Cities like Cebu, Davao, or Cagayan de Oro are pools of skilled manpower that can easily be tapped by the players in your industry. And as you expand, so will our countrymen in the provinces be provided with jobs. In fact, every head you hired takes on a multiplier effect—I’m told—of between two and a half to five times affects as other sectors likewise thrive from the consumers you  do empower. Your investment redounds to the benefit of local businesses, whose growth means even more jobs and opportunities for my countrymen.

We are doing what we can for the BPO sector because we believe that your success goes hand in hand with national development. We owe it to our workforce here in the Philippines to take full advantage of their skills, and it is vital that companies like you stay here and, hopefully, expand, as you are doing today.

Your continued confidence has allowed us to be among the global leaders in the industry. This is a source of pride for my government. But as long as there are still Filipinos who lack opportunities; as long as there are those with dreams but do not have the means to reach it; as long as we have not yet fully triumphed in the war against poverty, we will not be satisfied with these accolades. We will strive to become even better: to have even more streamlined processes, to have an even more skilled workforce, to create an even more viable economic space, so that we may remain leaders in the industry for the foreseeable future.

The effort does not fall on the shoulders of the leaders alone. All of us—from the front liners in government to the people working in the BPO industry, whether they specialize in the medical field or in customer service—have to answer a greater call—the call of country. What this means is that each of us must fulfill our own roles in the collective task of rebuilding this nation—that each person who works here puts in a good shift day in and day out, and give companies like EXL more reasons to hire more and more Filipinos; that each public servant in government works with honesty and efficiency; that each Filipino realizes that what he does every day shapes the fate of our country. Only then can we sustain the momentum that we have already gained.

Again, Happy New Year, and if I may share a few pieces of good news: Last year, the Department of Labor and Employment reported that we generated about 2.1 million new net jobs. Today, we had the stock market report. About a week ago, I was informed that this new bond offering that we… a dollar-bond offering to the tune of 1.5 billion dollars was oversubscribed by eight times. And, we paid roughly about five percent in interest. Contrast this with the major triple A-rated country in Europe that had to take a loan to pay in seven percent interest for a ten-year loan. Our maturity is 25; it seems the Philippines is truly getting to be more and more the investment destination. And your confidence in us, hopefully, will be rewarded not in the distant future but in the immediate future.

Thank you. Good afternoon.