The brighter side of Philippine business

 (Editor’s note: Robin Martin is the general manager of Intel Philippines)

Filipinos, including the press, business people and myself, tend to dwell too much on the negative aspects of the Philippines, and this affects the perception of foreigners, even the ones who have lived here for a while. This negative perception is way disproportionate to reality when compared to countries like Colombia, Egypt, the Middle East, and Africa.

Let us all help our country by balancing the negative with the positive, especially when we talk to foreigners, whether based here or abroad.

Looking back and comparing the Philippines today and in 1995, the year I came back from America, I was struck by how much our country has progressed physically. Consider the following:

1. The great telecom infrastructure that we have now did not exist in 1995. That was the year the telecom industry was deregulated. Since then, billions of dollars have been invested in both fixed-line and cellular networks, producing a system with over 5,000 kms of fiber-optic backbone at a world-competitive cost. From a fixed-line capacity of about 900,000 in 1995 we now have over 7 million. Cellular phones practically did not exist in 1995; now we have an over 11 million line capacity.

2. The MRT, many of the EDSA flyovers (including the Ayala Avenue flyover), the Skyway, Rockwell and Glorietta 4, the Fort, NAIA terminal 2 and most of the new skyscrapers were not yet built in 1995.

3. If you drive to the provinces, you will notice that national roads are now of good quality (international-quality asphalt roads). I just went to Iba, Zambales, last week and I was impressed that even a not-so-frequently-traveled road was of very good quality.

4. Philippine exports have increased by 600 percent over the past eight years. There are many, many more examples of such progress. Philippine mangoes are now exported to the US and Europe.

5. Intel has been in the Philippines for 28 years. The Philippines plant is where Intel’s most advanced products are launched, including the Pentium IV. By the end of 2002, Philippine operations became Intel’s biggest assembly and testing operations worldwide.

6. Texas Instruments has been operating in Baguio for over 20 years. The Baguio plant is the largest producer of DSP chips in the world. DSP chips are the brains behind cell phones. TI’s Baguio plant produces the chip that powers 100 percent of all Nokia cell phones and 80 percent of Sony Ericsson cell phones in the world.

7. Toshiba laptops are produced in Santa Rosa, Laguna.

8. If you drive a Mercedes-Benz, BMW, or a Volvo, there is a good chance that the ABS system in your car was made in the Philippines.

9. Trend Micro, makers of one of the top anti-virus software PC-cillin, develops its “cures” for viruses right here in Eastwood City, Libis, Quezon City. When a virus breaks into any computer system in the world, they try to find a solution within 45 minutes of finding the virus.

10. Today a majority of the top 10 US call-center firms in the US have set up operations in the Philippines. This is one area in which I believe we are the best in the world in terms of value for money.

11. America Online (AOL) has 1,000 people in Clark answering 90 percent of AOL’s global e-mail inquiries.

12. Procter & Gamble has over 400 people right here in Makati (average age 23 years) doing backup office work for their Asian operations, including finance, accounting, human resources and payments processing.

13. Among the many other things it does for its regional operations network in the Asia-Pacific region here in Manila, Citibank also does its global ATM programming locally.

14. For the past three years, the Philippines has been exporting cars in quantity courtesy of Ford Philippines.

Next time you travel abroad and meet business associates, tell them the good news. A big part of our problem is perception and one of the biggest battles can be won simply by believing and by making others believe.