Phl not worried over proposed US BPO ban

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines is not worried over the proposed ban on business process outsourcing (BPO) of the United States because investments of American firms continue to come in.

“We are not worried because we are still seeing a lot of American BPOs here,” Trade and Industry Undersecretary Cristino L. Panlilio told reporters yesterday.

Panlilio said they are treating the pronouncement as a campaign propaganda. “They said this already when (President Barrack) Obama was campaigning before. Even if all these things are coming out, at the end of the day there are no apprehensions.

“Nothing happened when they said this before and we expect nothing will come out of this again,” Panlilio said.

In fact, Panlilio said American firm EXL recently opened its facilities at SMX.

“The Philippines is getting to be their biggest location.”

The existing facility here has 1,500 seats, Panlilio said. It inaugurated an additional 500 seats, and in a year’s time, Panlilio said the firm would like to open another 1,500 seats.

Panlilio said the BPO offers insurance, healthcare, banking, logistics and financial analysis solutions. The expansion covers the health sector.

Panlilio added that the firm would also be hiring nurses.

“This is a good opportunity for our nurses because they will be able to practice their profession. They will be required to take US nursing board exams,” he said.

The health care call center will employ one doctor for every 50 nurses. Panlilio said the clients of the call center are insurance firms. The insurance firms have a toll free number clients can call whenever they feel sick. The callers will give their symptoms to the nurses here in the Philippines. If the disease is something that is beyond the authority of the nurse, they will transfer the call to Filipino doctors. The Filipino doctors will then decide if it is necessary to refer the client to an actual doctor in the US, or if they can prescribe medications over the phone.

Panlilio said the insurance firms found that 90 percent of the calls can be solved by nurses and that 95 percent of the time, the patient does not need to physically see the doctor because it can be solved by over the counter medicine.

Aside from the Philippines, EXL is present in Singapore, India and Eastern Europe.