2338__FEB03c_ BACOLOD CYBERCORRIDOR

							           PRESIDENT GLORIA MACAPAGAL ARROYO’S SPEECH
             DURING THE CYBER CORRIDOR VISAYAN TOUR:
              VISIT TO TELEPERFORMANCE BACOLOD CITY
             Luxur IT Center, Lacson St. cor. Magsaysay Ave.
                     Bacolod City, Negros Occidental
                            February 3, 2010
                               02032010C


Thank you very much Secretary Chua, our outsourcing czar.

Thank you very much Mayor Leonardia and Governor Zayco for your warm
words of welcome. I’d like to also greet Congressman Monico Puentevella, our
host congressman and Congressman Ignacito Arroyo of Negros Occidental.

I’d like to congratulate Attorney Sigue and the leaders of the ICT industry here
in Bacolod, and of course, thank you to Teleperformance for hosting this
occasion that I asked to be held. (applause)

I still can’t forget in 2006, I was here in the ballroom of this hotel for the Vice
Mayors’ League Convention and I said, “this is our last event in this place as a
ballroom because tomorrow it will be transformed into a call center.” And after
we left, Teleperformance stepped in and here they are stronger than ever.
Congratulations! (applause)

And so it's fitting that we should be here today as part of a tour of the Super
Regions: Agribusiness Mindanao, Tourism Central Philippines which Negros is
also a part of Bacolod, the North Luzon Agribusiness Quadrangle, the Urban
Luzon Beltway and the Cyber Corridor which we are featuring today. These
Super Regions were designed to spread development away from an inequitable
concentration in Manila.

I understand that some from the media would like to know how do they
become a part of the Cyber Corridor. Well, let me answer in this way, the Cyber
Corridor was identified jointly by the private sector, the academe and the
government. And these elements or parts of the Cyber Corridor where the areas
that they identified as comprising the strongest actual and potential locations
for ICT investments like call centers, back office, software development,
medical transcription, engineering design, animation and game development.

As we have heard glimpses earlier, certainly, the Cyber Corridor includes Metro
Manila and Metro Cebu, because they were the two original ICT Centers of
Excellence in our country. But now, they have included also 10 urban areas
being promoted as the best new destinations for ICT: Metro Laguna, Metro
Cavite, Iloilo, Davao, Bacolod, Metro Pampanga, Metro Bulacan, Cagayan de
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Oro, Central Bulacan and Lipa. Well, being already talked about some of the
contents of the brochure on the Cyber Corridor and congratulations for being
number one in business environment. (applause) I’m also told by the industry
that Bacolod’s best assets are its people, (applause) you the people and your
progressive mindset that spills over to the BPO employees who come from
different parts of the region to live and work in Bacolod. Also another very
important element is the infrastructure.

During our administration we completed the Bacolod-Silay Airport and we are
beginning the Bacolod-Silay access road, but that airport according to the
industry certainly boosted Bacolod’s potential as an IT hub. With such
infrastructure now, Bacolod offers a conducive climate for ICT investments,
and we have heard about the different IT-BPO companies in the area, the
biggest number of IT parks outside of Cebu and Metro Manila. And we have
giant investors here like Teletech, Convergys and of course our host
Teleperformance. (applause)

ICT, BPO and the Cyber industry have come a long way since 2001. The
Philippines itself has come a long way since January 2001. Many don’t
remember much about the tumultuous time less than ten years ago when the
nation was teetering on the brink of political chaos and financial bankruptcy.
The economy was jammed in reverse, few investments were being made, few
jobs were being created. The debt of the government and its corporations of 3.6
trillion pesos was bigger than our GDP of 3.3 trillion pesos. There were almost
no foreign reserves.

It was a time of lower salaries and higher prices. Tax revenues were so low that
we could hardly invest in expanding healthcare, improving education, and
providing clean water and needed electricity to remote barangays.

Into this dismal picture we stepped. I did not seek the Office of the President in
2001; it was thrust upon me. But rather than shirk from this onerous task, we
rolled up our sleeves, determined to turn the Philippines around.

We were focused like a laser beam on delivering real results to better the lives
of ordinary Filipinos. As an economist, I knew that to reverse years of economic
decline we had to instill fiscal discipline, grow the economy and invest in
human and physical infrastructure.

These actions would form the building blocks of a turnaround that would
deliver an unprecedented 36 quarters of uninterrupted growth, create 9 million
new jobs, add 53 million people to healthcare, with government coffers that
helped us withstand the global economic crisis.


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In my first State of the Nation in 2001, I said that we would create wealth by
developing labor-intensive, skills-intensive services such as ICT. And sure
enough from scratch with only 2,000 workers in the year 2000, we created
what is today a global powerhouse: the Philippine BPO industry. We achieved
this by promoting strategic investments in three areas:

First, digital infrastructure. We encouraged more broadband services in cities
and identified growth areas. Thus the cost of international calls went down
from 40 cents to 2 cents a minute for those using the VOiP. The number of
internet users jumped from 2 million in 2000 to more than 24 million today.
That is why we have an infrastructure for BPO.

And so that no Taiwan tremor or tsunami can cut off our cyber services from
their global clients, we encouraged PLDT and Globe to invest billions in having
more than one international telecommunications gateway into our country.

Second area of investment was an appropriate policy and legal environment.
We created the Commission on ICT. Rey Chua, our chairman, has been guided
by the policy that the ICT sector should be guided by the market, with minimal
government interference. For example, if the market calls for call centers, we
shouldn't force our investors to specialize in something else. Let them make the
decision. Instead of regulating, we gave incentives to the developers of IT parks
like the ones that are here in Bacolod, we assisted investors in identifying
promising provincial sites that’s why we designed the Cyber Corridor, and we
built more transport facilities to those sites like the Bacolod-Silay Airport.

Also because, of course, ICT is more than call centers and the other side of the
spectrum we have the IT. Yesterday, we opened an IT Center in Taguig in
Metro Manila. And the Chairman said that one of the reasons why they decided
to come to the Philippines after he met me in 2007 and learned of the
possibility of doing IT in the Philippines, he was convinced by our very good
Intellectual Property Protection environment.

So, that’s what we mean by supportive rather than regulating. And this
philosophy drove the fast growth of call centers. But now the market is leading
to the growth of the higher value added segments of the offshoring and
outsourcing industries, such as accounting, legal, medical, personnel and
administrative services.

Third area of investment, human capital. To increase the country’s share in
the global market for offshoring and outsourcing services, the government
intensified the implementation of various programs to train the workforce to
enable them to find jobs in the BPO sector, and educate the young on the use
of computers and internet for the next generation of IT and BPO workers. More

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than 4,000 public schools are now connected to the internet, including 22
schools in Bacolod.

In technical education and skills development training, we have invested three
times as much as the combined budgets of the three previous administrations.
A very large portion of this investment goes to scholarships for the BPO
industry, including 3,000 scholarships here in Region VI.

Thanks to these strategic investments, billions in investments have been
poured into the country by the private sector creating half a million new jobs in
BPO alone.

Today, the Philippines with 90 million people has challenged India’s one billion
population for BPO supremacy. Compared to almost nothing in 2001, 0.02
billion dollars, our BPO industry in 2009 earned more than 7 billion dollars.
(applause)

I’d like to think that the 500,000 jobs we are creating in ICT are part of the
legacy that I will leave, that is the legacy of hard work, a strong and stable
economy, renewed global engagement, major investments in healthcare and
education, and dramatic improvements in physical infrastructure like the
Bacolod-Silay Road, the Bacolod–Silay Airport, the RORO ports and other
important infrastructure. Much work remains to be done, but I am determined
to turn over to a new government a New Philippines ready for the challenge of
bringing the nation to the verge of first world in 20 years.

And what other precursor of the first world we see in the Philippines than more
than the BPO industry especially here where we are today. This is the only BPO
center I know that has a swimming pool. (laughter/applause) So this is an
industry that will continue to grow and grow. It is an industry that with all of
your support and your active participation will really lead us to the verge of
first world in 20 years.

Damo gid nga salamat sa inyo nga tanan! (applause)

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