TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines?Amid the global economic crisis that has dislocated many Filipino workers, two business process outsourcing (BPO) companies have started operations in Leyte and in Iloilo.

In Palo town, Leyte, APAC Customer Services Inc., a contact center company, opened its P200-million facility in Leyte on Monday, making the firm the first and only call center to operate in Eastern Visayas.

Michael Marrow, APAC chief executive officer, said that the company is "extremely" happy to open a branch in Leyte despite of the global financial crisis sweeping the world.

"The prospect of our operations here in Leyte is very excellent," Marrow said in a press conference recently.

The APAC in Leyte is expected to provide employment to 1,000 workers when the facility becomes fully operational.

Dough Almond, AP vice president for international operations, said their company chose Leyte because the local government understood their needs and the nature of their business.

"It also helped that there is a strong fiber optic backbone in the province. There are also over 20 top universities in the region. Hence, Leyte made the most sense," he said.

The APAC facility is located inside the Leyte Information Communication Technology (LICT) Park in Palo, Leyte, some 10 km away from Tacloban City.

Leyte also became the APAC's first site located outside Metro Manila.

Leyte Governor Carlos Jericho Petilla said the setting up of APAC in Leyte was a dream come true.

"It has always been the desire of Leyte to become an IT (information technology) hub in Eastern Visayas," he stressed.

Marrow said the company has facilities in Alabang, Muntinlupa City and in Cubao, Quezon City, aside from its 12 sites in the United States, and 5,000 employees in the US and about 5,000 employees in the Philippines.

In Iloilo City, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will inaugurate the TeleTech call center site here Tuesday in a big boost for the city's efforts to become one of the country's top business processing outsourcing (BPO) centers.

Arroyo is expected to arrive before noon at the Iloilo airport from Mindanao and will proceed to the TeleTech site at the 3rd floor of the SM City mall in Mandurriao District.

She will join TeleTech executives led by Maulik Parekh, TeleTech Executive Vice President for Asia, in unveiling a marker at the site before meeting with the call center's officials.

Some members of the Cabinet including secretaries Rey Anthony Roxas Chua (Commission on Information and Communications Technology), Peter Favila (Trade and Industry) and Marianito Roque (Labor and Employment) will join the President.

The 746-seater call center, considered the largest in this city, has around 1,600 employees mostly from the Western Visayas region.

"The people of Iloilo are proud of the fact their city now ranks third in the list of next wave of BPO destinations in the country. We witness this excellence everyday on our operations floor from the more than 1,600 employees at our site," Parekh said in a statement.

Arroyo will proceed to Boracay from Iloilo where she will hold a Cabinet meeting at the Boracay Terraces resort.