BPO firms give relief packages

Laguna’s thriving business process outsourcing (BPO) industry has donated P400,000 worth of relief packages to victims of last week’s monsoon deluge in Biñan City in the province and in Quezon City.

The assistance came even as several call center agents cried foul when BPO companies refused to suspend their operations at the height of the heavy rains. The industry is among the top revenue-generating sectors in the country, contributing some $11 billion in 2011.

The Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), an umbrella of about 300 US, Australian and European firms with facilities in the Philippines, led the distribution of relief packages to 2,000 families in Barangays Dela Paz and Malaban in Biñan on Tuesday.

Last week, packages were given to 1,300 families in Barangay Tatalon, Quezon City.

P400,000 in donations

The nonprofit Children’s Hour Inc. identified the two sites and facilitated the distribution, in coordination with the Philippine Army and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority in Laguna.

Raymond Antonio Lacdao, BPAP executive director, said the association had raised P400,000 in donations from several members. “We sent out letters to the companies’ country managers and their second liners who mobilized (the collection of fund),” he said.

The companies have devised their own donation schemes, either by soliciting directly from their employees or allocating calamity funds.

Lacdao said that although the total damage of the recent disaster to the BPO centers had yet to be assessed, some contact center facilities in Quezon City were among the places flooded. Maricar Cinco