As tensions churn on the high seas, Filipinos find peace on another front

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“The United States has, of course, been pushing for a peace agreement, but it was really the leadership of our president, who met with the vice chairman of the MILF in Tokyo to discuss principles, which has resulted in this agreement,” he said.

“They saw that the president is sincere and enjoys unprecedented trust. His popularity ratings are at 77 percent, and he’s been in office just over two years,” Cuisia added. “He realizes that unless we have peace in that area, we cannot have sustainable economic development.”

To that end, said Cuisia, “Mindanao has tremendous economic potential — it has lots of mineral deposits and very fertile land, and they don’t get typhoons.”

Roughly the size of Indiana, 37,660-square-mile Mindanao is the easternmost of the 7,107 islands that comprise the Philippines. With 21.5 million people, it’s home to nearly a fourth of the country’s population. Yet the island’s agriculture-based economy — dominated by bananas, pineapples, palm oil and other plantation crops — has left the vast majority of Mindanao’s people impoverished for the benefit of a relative few.

The peace agreement, assuming it holds, is one of several bright spots in an economic outlook that until just a few years ago seemed rather grim.

“When we look back at the [Ferdinand] Marcos years, martial law was imposed in 1972 and lasted until 1985,” Cuisia recalled. “Our economy did very badly during those years, especially after the assassination of Sen. Benigno Aquino, father of our current president. Inflation shot up over 18 percent, and interest rates were as high as 43 percent. Our international reserves had been practically depleted by the Marcos government. When the new government took over in 1983, it had less than $1 billion in reserves.”

However, it did possess an estimated 1,220 pairs of shoes left behind by the former first lady, Imelda Marcos — who along with her husband made world headlines for indulging in a lavish lifestyle while millions of Filipinos went to bed hungry every night. (The shoe collection, sitting in a section of Manila’s National Museum, is now worthless, having fallen victim years ago to termites, typhoons and government neglect.)

These days, things are very different. Poverty and graft are still endemic, but the Philippines is a democracy, and the economy is strong. During the first half of 2012, the country’s GDP expanded by 6.1 percent. That’s down from last year’s 7.6 percent growth rate, but Cuisia says the 2011 figure was partially fueled by election-year spending.

One of the most promising industries is the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector.

Cuisia said the Philippines is now the world’s leading call-center employer, surpassing even India, where rents in Bangalore and other major cities have become excessively high.

At the moment, the BPO industry employs about 640,000 Filipinos — working mainly in customer service, tech support and legal/medical transcription. The largest single employer is Cincinnati-based Convergys, with 26,000 employees in 18 call centers throughout the Philippines, followed by Accenture, with 24,000, and IBM with just over 20,000. Other large players in this industry are J.P. Morgan, American Express, United Airlines, Citibank, Dell and Hewlett-Packard.

In addition to lower overhead, the Philippines has another advantage over India: the English spoken there is much closer to American English.

“We’re more familiar with American jargon, TV programs and NFL sports,” Cuisia said. “For example, if an American customer cracks a joke, it’s very likely someone working at an Indian call center won’t get it, whereas the Filipino would understand. Also, the Filipino call centers tend to be warmer and more accommodating, where the Indian call centers tend to be argumentative.”

Cuisia predicted that by 2016, about 1.2 million Filipinos will be working in the BPO sector, generating $25 billion a year. That’s even more than the current top earner, electronics, which now accounts for 40 percent of foreign exchange. Meanwhile, remittances from the 9 million Filipinos working abroad, mostly in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, will bring in around $21 billion this year.

Cuisia, 68, is a political appointee. Raised in Manila, he speaks Tagalog as well as English and Spanish. Like many Filipinos, he was educated in the United States — first at Philadelphia’s La Salle University, then at the Wharton School, where he earned an MBA in 1970. The aspiring executive then worked in New York for Arthur Young & Co. In later years, he headed the country’s social security system, then became governor of the Central Bank and chairman of the Monetary Board — finally becoming CEO of insurance giant AIG’s Philippine subsidiary, Philam.

Since coming to Washington in 2011, a big part of Cuisia’s job is promoting trade and investment in the Philippines. That’s why, in late October, he joined 42 other Washington-based foreign ambassadors on a State Department-sponsored “Experience America” trip to Arkansas. There, Cuisia met with former President Bill Clinton, Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe, and top officials of Fortune 500 companies and educational institutions.

“We focus on our military and security cooperation, and I do a lot of lobbying  with  the Pentagon and the State Department,