:: MIS Insights ::

BusinessWeek reports about the increasing IT jobs being outsourced to the Philippines.

The islands share a language and legal system with the U.S., and offer high skills and low costs. They could outrun India for outsourcing dollars - BusinessWeek

At this rate, dollar$ from Overseas Filipino Workers and revenues from outsourced work can go a long way to improving our economy. However, how long do you think will this business model stay profitable? Can it last us until 2030?

I’m asking this because the opportunities from the reported three billion dollar industry aren’t being taken advantage of.

Not Because You Can Means You Should
Call-center agents and transcriptionists might be getting better salaries than the average Juan, but their impulsive spending behavior sucks. Without the proper financial education and investment opportunities, a good portion of those hard-earned dollars are being consumed at want-based goods rather than being invested at money-producing assets.

You’ve probably heard of the saying, “Don’t give a man fish, rather, teach him how to fish.” Well, now that we were able to get hold of some fish, “Do we cook, serve and sell it to other people?” or “Do we eat it ourselves?”

Dollars from outsourced jobs can be a good thing for us - it can avail us of our needs and luxuries in life. However, it can also be a training for disaster. What do we do once we lose our low price advantage like what’s happening to India right now?

The saturation of India’s outsourcing market, increasing cost of living and developing infrastructures has raised the cost of outsourced jobs. But India isn’t giving up their jobs without a plan in mind. They’re upgrading their service-oriented work force from call center agents to consultants, IT managers and MIS people - something which we already have!

So, while the Philippines is at it copying India’s strategy, why not add a little planning for the future? You know, something about taking advantage of what we already have in terms of culture, work force and financial assets. Something that can improve the current business model to become a more sustainable one.

When I was driving on my way to Ateneo this morning, I got behind a car whose plate number plaque was covered with dark plastic. The plastic was dark enough to render the plate number unreadable even under broad daylight. This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered illegible (non-readable) car plaques on the road. I’ve noticed that more and more people are following suit and I think that this isn’t good for the Philippines.

Having an unrecognizable plate number is a license to kill in the Philippines. The possibility of speeding away without getting identified after an accident is quite distressing for me. My slippery-slope prediction? An increase in non-readable plate numbers will also trigger an increase in “hit and run” situations in the road. This will make the Philippines more undesirable, attracting less investors and venture capitalists.

If MMDA and LTO don’t get their act together to put a stop on this, our roads will be infested with reckless drivers. Fixing this kind of problem later will be much more expensive. It will be more expensive for the MMDA because it will have to acquire implements to catch the violators (i.e. motorcycles to chase them). Ultimately, it will be more expensive for the people once MMDA figures out the costing of such violation (cars getting towed, tickets, etc). Though I have a feeling this might not be such a bad business proposition for MMDA+LTO… Get more dark plaques out there, then we can start farming the roads … *Ahem!* … going back…

Audience Rebuttal : Whoever said that having dark-colored plates equates to reckless drivers? Is there a study for this?

I’ve seen it on the road. Filipino drivers will do anything crazy on the road if there is no police officer around. Tricycles counter-flowing / going the opposite direction of the road. Jeepney drivers taking a U-turn in non-designated U-turn slots. Buses stalling along Edsa to wait for passengers, creating bottlenecks that usually stretch from Megamall to Kamuning. And let’s not even talk about the privately-owned car drivers whose driving ethics doesn’t include giving way to others.

Do you really think that ALL people who get dark-colored plastic covers for their plate numbers will only use it for fashionable purposes? Just like how students don’t want to wear identification cards in school these days?

Slashdot pointed me to an article that demonstrated how to crack a Diebold self-service voting machine.

A couple of untrained 54-year old women from Black Box Voting bought $12 worth of tools and in four minutes penetrated the memory card seals, removed, replaced the memory card, and sealed it all up again without leaving a trace.

Is it really that easy to crack voting machines? Is that the main reason why the implementation of an electronic election system has been put off so long despite having all the necessary materials ready?

News Flash:

Last 2003, Mega Pacific eSolutions Inc. was awarded with a contract worth PhP1.3 billion (US$25.27 million) by the Comelec. The agreement was for around 2000 Automated Counting Machines to be used in the May 2004 elections. Later on, Comelec paid and Mega Pacific delivered the machines. There was no e-voting during the 2004 elections. Why? At January of 2004, the Supreme Court nullified the contract between Comelec and Mega Pacific because of some legal technicalities.

So for the past two years, the Philippine government has been asking Mega Pacific to return the money. Mega Pacific has yet to comply with such request.

Supreme Court
Why the H didn’t the Supreme Court step in a lot earlier before the PhP 1.3 billion transaction was made? I hope this wasn’t part of an orchestrated plan for a system that wasn’t bound to work at all from the beginning. Think about it, from a technical standpoint, e-voting is easy to implement. However, from a cultural perspective, e-voting will be a pain in the arse to implement in the Philippines.

• Education. The Filipinos aren’t educated yet on how the system works.
• Apathy. The deal was for 40 million Filipino votes. That’s almost half of our local population. How many of them actually go out and vote?
• Accuracy. The machines were proven to be accurate. I think some politicians didn’t like the idea of a voting system that was too accurate. If 40 million votes out of 80 are hard enough, imagine 40 million unique votes…

Sour Loser
Or could this be a case of a sour loser? Did the losing bidders get something out of the deal too by being quiet for a while? Or did they specifically wait for the Comelec and Mega Pacific to get entrenched too deeply first before bringing this up?

Cheated-Cheater
As with most government biddings, there are always two sides of the camp. Those who won and those who got cheated. Did the other bidders really got cheated when it lost to a 2-month old corporation? Was Mega Pacific eSolutions created to address real problems or to cheat us out with virtual solutions? Who was cheated? The bidders? Comelec? Mega Pacific? The politicians? The Supreme Court? None of the above. It was the Filipino People. The people who are paying e-vat so that there’ll be a bigger budget to craft real solutions for the people.

However, enough of this negative investigative journalism. We already have too much of that out there on the net. I’m not looking for cheaters or mistakes. I’m looking for opportunities and strengths to leverage.

With the 2007 local elections coming up, it seems that there’s no hope for an electronic voting system on the horizon. Until then, it seems like quick counts will be done manually. Since the machines are already there, I hope a little common sense wafts into the room and make them realize that the best thing that they could do is go out and use it. Maybe not on 2007, but hopefully soon. The longer we keep them stocked up, the more money that the Philippines loses through storage costs, inflation, opportunity cost and depreciation. Or we could do as Botswana does…

In Botswana, until 1999, voting was done by colored marbles. Polling places had jars of marbles for the candidates. Each candidate’s jar had marbles of a different color. Voters filed through, picked a marble from their candidate’s jar, and dropped it into a box. At the end of the day, the marbles in the box were sorted and counted.

A barrel of oil costs an average of US$75 dollars right now. With more and more energy-dependent industries sprouting left and right, the price of such limited and elastic good has nowhere to go but up. Businessweek speculates over what could happen once this black gold hits a US$100 per barrel. When it does happen, what could be in store for the Philippines?

In my opinion, a 33% increase ($75 -> $100) in oil prices can mean the end of the world for the Philippines.

The Book Says: Once oil prices increase, an inevitable rise in transportation fare will trigger an avalanche of price increases in the basic commodities of man. According to Economics 101, consumer spending will decrease, revenues will drop, businesses will get killed and ultimately, the economy will go down. Theoretically.

I Say: However, that’s nothing we haven’t experiencd before. Gas prices have doubled in the past two years but Filipinos are still standing in the ring. I think this is because Filipinos are like cockroaches. You can throw Filipinos in any working condition or let him/her engage in the most inhumane activities but they’d still find a way to get through. Whether it’s uncanny adaptation skills or the inability to respond otherwise to the situation, Filipinos have proven to be a resilient race - thanks in part to centuries of colonization and the teachings of our passive Christian heritage. [I say this part in behalf of the majority of the Filipinos. On the other hand, I do recognize that not every Filipino is a Christian.]

The Book Says: Social unrest will increase. Protests of the following flavors will show up:

• Unemployment woes due to the death of businesses
• Requests for wage increase to offset the avalanche of price increases
• Inadequacy of the government, standard operating procedure

Unfortunately, this does nothing but discourage investors from dealing with us. As such, the government will be prompted to raise tax rates again to compensate for the decrease in the country’s ca$h flow.

I Say: Why are people dependent on the government to provide us with what we do not have? I think Filipinos have grown too fond of looking for what they do not have. We are too much of a Dona Victorina to realize that we have many opportunities / blessings right in front of us.

For instance, being in a capitalistic nation with a democratic government does have its perks despite the bullcrap that we have to put up with. There is no rule prohibiting people from setting up their own businesses or practices. Why wait to be employed, when one can employ themselves? In this way, not only did you get a job, but you can also help someone else by employing them! Imagine if everyone thought like that…

The article at Businessweek talked about what could happen to the major players in the global economy - where, obviously, the Philippines wasn’t included. Why? Because Filipinos want to be Bosses, but not employers. Can you spot the difference?

I hope we don’t allow the cockroaches to be gassed first at US$100 before we do something about the situation. Let’s do what we have to do to save the cockroaches. And let’s do it now.

I had my license renewed yesterday. Took me two days to get everything. I visited the Land Transportation Office Eastern Licensing Center (along P. Guevarra at San Juan)

Day 1 - Medical Tests

Drug test (P250)

I took the urine drug test at Labstat Laboratories. Such test requires a great amount of endurance and self-control. Taking a leak before a urine test can be very frustrating because one can only have so much bodily fluids. A lesson I learned the last time I took such test.

Medical (P50)

The medical test was a comedy. I was tested for 3 things. Height, weight and vision quality.

• 5′11″ (something that hasn’t changed since grade 7)
• 228 lbs (something that has changed a LOT since highschool)
• 50/75 (though I think i’m already hitting 75/100. I need new eye glasses)

Regarding the perception test, I tried doing it Armaggedon style - memorizing the letters on the board rather than reading it. Good thing I have phortnographic memory, I was able to memorize all the characters. Unfortunately, I got the ordering wrong. So the doctor looks at me with a knowing smile and says, “Slowly and one more time.” Heh, I got it right when I actually read it. Count on me to put a smile on everyone’s face.

Day 2 - Test of Patience

License Fee (P180)
Revision of Records (P30)
Computer Fee (P53.76)

Total for Day 2 (P263.76)

Got there early at 8.15am for the pre-evaluation, hoping that everything would zoom through faster than I can say “Chiktikah-fast-paws.” It looked good when they got my signature and picture taken within 15 minutes. However, everything was downhill from there. The next step - Cashier - took an hour. The final step - Releasing - then ate up 2 hours of my abundant time.

My Own Licensing Center

While waiting, I brainstormed for ideas on how to run my own licensing center. I’d wager it would:

• Have a better Public Announcement System so that one won’t worry about missing their call.
• Have more than one fan at the waiting area. They’re not going to be stand fans but ceiling fans.
• There will be windows to keep fresh air in circulation.

It’s not going to be an assembly-type transaction center too. This window, that window, crap that. I noticed that the people at LTO changed places every once in a while. This means that everyone’s a generalist and can actually take care of an entire transaction without the lengthy wait times during hand-offs. However, to make this a fair comment, I’ve thought of rebuttals against my stance:

• Theory A - specializing makes work on each node efficient. I haven’t been around enough to see the entirety of LTO’s operations. Maybe they’ve tried it before and it sucked, but then again, maybe they haven’t.
• Security concern about the decentralization of powers over so many people. Different people must be in charge of the different responsibilities in a system to avoid corruption. If nobody gets to overlook the progress of work in a system, this might lead to corruption. In addition, allowing a lot of people to access certain resources in the system (such as cashier register) is a big vulnerability spelled in all caps.

So, if I can’t have my home-run-all-the-way transactional setup, then we’ll have to do something to make things better or at least bearable:

A ticker to show application progress. Not only will it show the progress of one’s application, it will also give people an estimate of how much they still have to wait ~ allowing them to do other things or minimize boredom plain and simple.

A ticketing system just like what they have in banks where you get a stub once you get in and wait for your number to be called. One gets idea right away of how deep they are in the queue or how far they are from the end of the tunnel.

Online application and the option to pay elsewhere such as 7-11s, banks, gasoline stations or wherever can greatly decrease bottlenecks inside LTO by the case.

Of course my registration system will be fast and expensive. There’s nothing free in life and nothing expensive should be of low quality. This is not what I see happening though, but this is what I see should be happening since not all expensive stuff are high quality stuff. In this democratic and capitalist nation, one should always get what they pay for.

It will also have service level agreements (SLAs) with hardware and software solution providers.

Since LTO is one of the government’s main functions, it would be cool if they could rig the business permits of the solution providers to the Quality of Service (QoS) they provide. If this were the case, then our telecommunications industry would be a lot better, not just flashier.

Hardware maintenance will also be implemented. At the first sign of distress, corrective maintenance will pull out and replace a non-working equipment so that hardware failures are handled gracefully and transparently from the customers. However, preventive maintenance is better than reactive, so technicians should perform regular visits to the sites to make sure everything is well-oiled and running as it should be.

The entire process took me two trips to San Juan and five hours of waiting spread over two days. The system works, but it can be improved. Most filipinos say there’s a lot of potential in the Philippines. That’s true. However, I’d love to see that optimism put into concrete plans of action and solid actions which we dreaming lot of Filipinos lack.

It’s no longer the 18th century where we have Foreigners telling us what to do. Time to scrap that old perspective of us waiting on others to tell us what to do. Time to show them our bayags. Time to have a better LTO Licensing Center. Time to have my own Licensing Center.

if you look at it, a lot of people are trained to look at the faults rather than the merits of something, somewhere or someone. this post was inspired by my broadband internet experience with the top telco company here in the philippines ~ pldt.

last week, pldt was *upgrading* their lines. they were trying to push through with the 2mbps upgrades for the 768kbps users (that’s me!). but of course, such setup requires load testing and a lot of configuring. i guess they were asking, “will our pipeline and servers be able to handle such load from the consumers?”

the good

so they gave it a run last thursday and i got a taste of 2mbps connection ~ which they promised to give me a good two months ago. so, my 80 kilobytes per sec was upped to 200 kbytes/sec. if we translate it to the metric system, my 200mb per hour download tripled into roughly 600mb per hour!

*azureus statistics were crammed to make it fit the width of the page

the bad

only to take it away for the whole weekend and my 768kbps connection to boot. i’m pretty much surfing the net as if i were in dial-up but worse ~ some pages don’t even load at all after waiting forever. talk about retribution for maxing out pldt’s service.

as i thought about it, maybe it will be out for the weekend to make way for the businesses who need the internet more than the home users. i don’t mind waiting, weekend’s the time for relaxation anyway.

however, it’s already monday and i still can’t get a decent ftp connection to my different web servers. what the H???!! and oh, getting redundant internet connections from different and several providers is out of the question. that would be very expen$ive.

but i’m not really complaining:

• one weekend does not spoil the entire four years that i’ve been using pldt mydsl (though pldt seems to do this once in a while)
• providing internet for so many people requires a lot of crap to pull together
• one doesn’t really have a choice in the monopoly-driven industry

the ugly

it just got me into reflecting: why do people forget the good things in something - whether it be a relationship, a person, a product, a service, or whatever? why is something bad highly publicized or more noticed rather than what’s good in something? why are there so many blogs about how pldt sux rather than how well they’ve improved over the past few years?

training

i guess it’s all about training. ever since we were kids, society has been training people to look at the bad things in life.

if you go to school, how good you are is dependent on how few mistakes you make ~ rarely on how much good you can do. schools have grading systems that rarely record how well a student performs but it can record how badly a student does perform. every mistake eats away your excellent pristine grade.

if you watch the news, most clips will be about how something *bad* happened elsewhere. *who was responsible for the fire? who murdered el presidente? who stole the pizza pie?* rather than *it was a heroic rescue by the firemen in pink; we could have prevented the assassination if we posted more guards; the stolen pizza must have quenched the hunger of someone out there and that’s alright, as long as it helps*

if you surf the net, most discussions, articles and forums about pldt will be about how lousy their service is rather than how well they’ve been pioneering broadband telco for the past few years. if one would take a look at their history lessons, this state of technology has developed fast considering we just started a few years ago. if one would look over neighboring countries, our country is not really at the bottom of the pile when it comes to the telco industry.

as my father told me, people need to start looking at the good rather than the bad. everything will have their bad points, that’s true, but that’s no reason to focus on it. everything will always have a good side that one must always strive to look at.

yes, even PLDT.