Call centers, Parisian
chairs and RP rattan
By Raul Pangalangan
Inquirer News Service

I WAS reading the International Herald Tribune the other day and saw what I thought was an altogether alien business report about Maison Drucker, a company that produces the chairs favored in Parisian cafés. These chairs are said to have inspired Ernest Hemingway in his favorite haunt and Claude Monet in his studio, and today are sold with either paper or metal plates attesting to their pedigree. Totally foreign, or so I thought, until I read several paragraphs later that the chairs are made with "spiny tropical reeds from the Philippines, which has always supplied the flexible rattan for Drucker chairs."

The company pioneered the making of handmade rattan chairs way back in the 1930s because rattan was cheaper than wood. Yet, the report goes, faced with bankruptcy in 1997, the company looked at the "tantalizing possibility of shifting jobs to a cheaper Asian workforce." Its chief executive was quoted: "There were two choices: go to the Philippines or stay [in France]." And stay, they did.

As a Filipino reading that account, I instantly thought of what might have been: the jobs it could have generated for local workers, the benefits for their families. The chairs apparently are sold for $245 up to $1,106 each, for their artistry as well as their historical charm. A few of those dollars could have found their way into a Filipino father's monthly take-home pay, a mother's health and insurance benefits. I imagined the workers' pride in earning their keep, sending their children to school, buying gifts for family at Christmas.

I know that there are Filipinos who do not think much of direct foreign investments and "outsourcing" as a way out of the economic rut we are in. Outsourcing happens when US and European companies shift parts of their operations to countries where labor is cheap. Critics say that only the lowest-skill jobs are "migrated" to developing countries. "Exhibit A" is the call center business, where most of the openings are for entry-level, dead-end jobs, and there is high worker turnover. Critics say that we thus abdicate control over our economy to foreigners, and that we end up unable to produce anything really, just bits and pieces that end up in someone else's product that are eventually sold in the market.

Those critics must be well fed. Filipinos are desperate for jobs, traditional honest-to-goodness ways of earning a decent living. Filipino fathers and mothers simply want regular grocery money, and payment for the monthly rent and utilities, school tuition and "baon" [allowance], and of course, cellular phone cards for text messaging. No fancy perks for them, no elaborate retirement funds, and certainly no "pabaon" [departure present], Armed Forces-style. Yet I do not think parents with children to feed, house and clothe would rather bum around day in, day out if they had a choice. In the face of the impending lifting of garments quotas by the end of this year which will enable European and US manufacturers to shift their subcontracting jobs to China where labor is cheapest, we must hang on to the opportunities that outsourcing offers.

Things look rosy indeed for call centers. They have begun to move south to the Visayas and eventually to Mindanao. Call centers have opened in Cebu City, soon in the cities of Davao and Dumaguete as well. (Apparently we have run out of good English speakers in Manila!) The Philippine-based outsourced businesses have begun to move up market, rendering more and more sophisticated services. Local firms now take outsourced accounting jobs. Indeed, the legal profession itself might wish to take notice. A leading US group in legal research has outsourced brief-making jobs to Manila, and has hired energetic young lawyers to do legal research and writing for American cases. The Internet has truly blurred the boundaries that separate nations and has made our work seamless.

But while globalization has ensured the free movement and fair treatment of capital, it has not ensured the free movement and fair treatment of labor. Capital is free to seek the highest returns and is assured by international law of fair treatment. But when our migrant workers look abroad to find the best wages for their labor, they are at the mercy of the national laws in their host countries and are subject to abuse. We have long agonized over our OFW brethren and their long bouts of separation from family. Finally, it is the jobs shifting to where we are, and we should welcome them wholeheartedly.

Migrating jobs will not stop the flight of migrant labor. We already witness the exodus of Filipino nurses to countries where they get more respect and where that respect is expressed not just in their professional standing vis-à-vis patients and doctors but also in terms of dollars and cents. We might soon see the exodus of Pinoy English teachers to China where they will help the next generation of Chinese entrepreneurs and CEOs conquer the world, unfortunately, including the Philippines.

But first things first. We cannot speak of producing the future Filipino Einsteins or Freuds unless first we feed the present generation of Filipino children. Then we talk about the finer skill levels that we seek, and the even finer ideological concerns of time-warped nationalists. To those who believe that outsourced jobs are beneath us, notice all the success stories of local tycoons. They all began peddling the most pedestrian goods. A tobacco tycoon sold paper for wrapping cigarettes, and is now a captain of industry. To the enemies of outsourcing: the child knocking on your car window to sell sampaguita leis could very well be a future member of the Makati Business Club, given the right breaks.
Seize the day, seize the hour. Carpe diem.

Comments to raul.pangalangan@up.edu.ph