Jason Martin asked:




The Philippines is a wondrous, magical place. With over 7,000 islands, you could spend a lifetime there and never begin to see it all. With that in mind, here are three places to visit when you embark on your Philippines adventure.

Metropolitan Manila

The Philippines capital, Manila, is a center of all things in the country. Many call it a city by the bay. Sure, it’s humid and congested, but you can find whatever you seek here. It’s a shopper’s paradise.

And if you want to get close to a loved one, spend some time soaking up the sunset at Manila Bay.

Corregidor Island

It’s a tadpole-shaped island where heavy fighting took place during WWII. If you love history, take some time to visit this jewel of a place. It’s where Gen. MacArthur said, “I shall return.”

You can still see the remains of the war-battle barracks and canyons used to fight.

Rizal Park

If you find yourself in Metro Manila, take a journey to it’s heart. There you’ll find beautiful Rizal Park, which is 148 acres. It’s named after Dr. Jose Rizal, who was a national hero in the Philippines.

Everyone, from families to lovers, enjoy the park. I’d recommend taking a ride on the calesa, which a horse-drawn carrage made of wood. This park has playgrounds, fountains, concert area and gardens. It’s worth checking out.

No matter where you go in the Philippines, beauty and fun are at your fingertips. These three places are just a small sampling of what makes the Philippines such a great place to visit.

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Roberto L. Bacasong asked:


Yuppie Filipinos get the chance to be employed easily once they obtained their bachelor or diploma degrees because of the emergence of contact centers everywhere in the Philippines. These workers started to fill the 24-hour skyscrapers that gives a colorful background to metro Manila’s financial districts at nighttime.

This only shows that people employed in this job for a couple of years were used to on their ticking biological sleeping habit. They slept all day long just to regain their strength and wake up again at the wee hours to prepare themselves for a nightlong work. Clad in casual attire with matching fashionable coats are the most common props if you are a customer service representative. During break time some even used to occupy the al fresco various dining areas in Manila. In Ortigas for instance, call center agents enjoy their 30-minute to 1 hour break at McDonald’s, Starbucks, among others. For those who have extra pennies, they enjoy the hot aroma of Brazilian coffee in various blend. Others may sit on the corner and lit up their cigarette in a way of releasing their stress from work. It is enjoying isn’t it?

At 8 pm. about 100 people, most 25 younger, sit in a room of enclosed cubicles outfitted with phones and computers. They’ll be working until 4 am. or depends on the schedule of their shifts. As their shifts starts, it is usually morning in the US. These contact centers are following US standard zones such as Pacific, Eastern, Mountain and Central.

Meanwhile, 20-year-old Luisa Geneta disclosed that call center is her first job when she finished her bachelor’s degree on May 4, 2007. At 12 am., Geneta left her house in Tondo, a suburb village in Manila, as her shift starts at 2 am. This Banking and Finance graduate from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) is one of the top caliber representatives for Unique Interaction, an American call center based in Ortigas.

“Working in a call center in the Philippines is really a big challenge for me especially that I’m new to this business. I spent most of my time and energy on this job,” she said, who handles an inbound account.

It is a very risky to leave my house at midnight for a young lady like me. However, I consider that this is the most rewarding career that we have nowadays and this will be a big help in creating another means of livelihood for us Filipinos especially for fresh graduates like me, she claimed.

On the other hand, Margaret Estanislao, 19, a team leader of the same company, disclosed that placing the agents into action challenge her in keeping her job.

Estanislao, who started as an agent added that they tried everything in sorting out the problem of the customers. “We need to maintain our empathy if the customer is upset. They are pissed and upset not because of the representatives but to the products itself”.

Both Geneta and Estanislao agreed that this job has given them the opportunity to enhance their skills and boost their confidence when it comes of interaction with their clients in a phone-to-phone conversation.

“Not to mention the financial aid that it gives to me and my family. I think this industry will continue to prosper in the succeeding years and it will continue to be one of the leading providers of career opportunities for Filipinos,” Geneta further said.

It cannot be denied that outsourcing business is one of the most flavored industries in the Philippines and other Asian countries. It appears that contact center executives preferred this country because of the number of students produced every year, which can speak English in American way. As the third largest English-speaking country in Asia no doubt that business process outsourcing is in demand today.

BPO companies provides a state-of-the-art equipment in outsourcing their business in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. These companies trained their employees to speak like American way. In Unique Interaction, they provide fundamental call center training before the call center trainees will be allowed to take calls. The trainees has to learn account information first. Once they know the account then they are deployed ready on the floor and receive as many calls as they want. The company also teach their employees on how to handle their customers well. It is so hard to lose a customer, we know that they are considered as the lifeblood that gives full stream of support to make the company up and running and stay on the business for long.

The fact is call centers are part of the Philippine economic activity. Almost half of the 86.2 million people in the Philippines are younger than 20 years old. So don’t be surprised if you will be able to meet supervisors, team leaders, managers below 25. This is because that call center has the fastest way of promoting a career development. If the agent is performing better and receiving good CSAT ratings then no doubt that within six months or less than, this certain employee is entitled to move to another level in his or her career path. The Philippines is also one of the potential factors for outsourcing. It has been also forecast by the XMG Inc., Manila-based research and advisory firm that the nation will surpass India by 2008 as home to the world’s largest call center companies.

The Philippines offers attractive environment for the BPO companies, which is one of the key requirements by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) in applying for this business. Even now big contact center firms also expanded their centers not only in Manila but targeting the provincial levels. So it means, the revenues will not only take place within the National Capital Region (NCR) but it will also circulate to the provincial areas after passing the standard set by the Peza. Largest call centers are also found operating in Pampanga, Laguna and Baguio in Luzon; Bacolod, Cebu, Dumaguete and Iloilo in the Visayas; and Cagayan de Oro and Davao in Mindanao.

The Philippine Government is very supportive to this. Under the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, she said that BPO companies will generate billions of pesos in the country with target by 2010. When it starts to operate in 2000, now off-shore call center industry estimates to employs 60,000 people.*

Valuenotes Outsourcing Practice asked:


Over the last few years, the Philippines has been increasingly gaining traction as an offshoring destination, especially in niches like call centers, medical transcription, animation, publishing and legal services.

ValueNotes has been researching and analyzing the Indian publishing offshoring industry since 2005. With over 100 service providers, some of them with decades of experience, the Indian publishing offshoring industry is quite mature. While India commands a lion’s share in publishing outsourcing, especially in the STM (scientific, technical and medical) segment, service providers in countries like Philippines and China have been around for quite some time.

We estimate the revenues of Publishing BPO industry to be approximately $100 m in 2008. Among the 20-25 vendors, SPi Global Solutions, Innodata Isogen and Asiatype Inc. have been the early movers and have been in existence for two decades or more.

All these service providers have a strong focus on STM (Scientific, Technical and Medical) publishers, and are now beginning to look at the educational and/or corporate publishing segments. These early entrants have positioned themselves as ‘end-to-end service providers’ to the publishing industry. Most large and mid-sized players in the Philippines have been growing at approximately 20-30% per year for the last couple of years.

While publishing BPO industry in the Philippines and India began at the same time, there is a huge difference in their growth patterns. The Philippines industry is approximately one fifths of that of the Indian publishing BPO in terms of manpower. The two leading Philippines players are comparable to the leading Indian players. SPi with an over 5,000 strong workforce in the Philippines is one of the largest publishing BPOs in the world!

However, while almost 80% of the Indian revenues are contributed by the top 10-12 vendors; in the Philippines top 2 vendors comprise 80% of the total revenues. The Philippines vendor landscape is marked by an absence of a strong mid tier (200-500 employees). Apart from Xlibris (captive), Affinity Express, Asiatype and few others, there are very few companies in the mid tier vis-à-vis over 80-100 vendors in that space in India.

On the skills front, India has developed tremendous capabilities in automation and technology. While attributes like cultural proximity to the US, design and copy-editing skills are some of the strong capabilities within Philippines, there is a need to rise to the next level. There is currently an underdeveloped mid tier vendor landscape in the Philippines. Several of these mid-tier companies are subcontractors to the industry leaders. In order to capture the huge opportunity in publishing outsourcing, it is imperative for these Philippines BPOs to build differentiators in their service offerings.

remotestaff asked:


Networking companies lure members by emphasizing self-responsibility. Among the thought-provoking questions often thrown at us are: Would you like to work from home and earn more? Would you like to be your own boss and be responsible for yourself? Would you like to have a growing career and profit through your network?

These questions would surely entice employees who long to earn extra, fresh graduates who look for a shortcut to high gains and self-employed who are willing to invest their money and see it multiply.

On the other side of the fence, greener promises are offered by reputable and well-established corporations, such as call centers. They attract job hunters with a periodic salary, benefits ranging from health care to car incentives, high-percentage commissions, and possible promotions to the corporate ladder. In a nutshell, its primary charm is financial assurance, thus giving networking companies a stiff competition in luring people from the workforce.

Any member of the workforce whose focus is the achievement of his goals would find both options to be very alluring. Thus, he has to carefully look into not only the advantages but also the disadvantages. Let us proceed then to our investigation.

Multilevel marketing schemes, also known as networking, promote the following benefits:

Work from home. For most people, the home is the most convenience and comfortable place to work in. During lunch breaks, one does not have to eat at an overcrowded pantry where your elbow room is the size of your plate. He may just proceed to the kitchen and scour the fridge for some ready-for-reheating food or prepare a fifteen-minute meal recommended by Rachel Ray. Moreover, one can avoid anxiety attacks brought about by deciding on what to wear the follwing day or the next week to prevent fashion redundancy. He may just wear his peejays at home and start work. Lastly, one does not have to go the extra mile in extending kindness and patience to irksome colleagues because working from home lets him take advantage of the solitude and bliss.

Work stress-free. Apart from the convenience of working from home, stress can be relevantly reduced. No more wasting two hours of your life spent on whining over the traffic congestion in every street of Metro Manila. No more overloaded buses and MRTs with nothing to offer except SROs. With less stress, time and energy are better spent on a more active lifestyle and quality bonding with the family.

Be your own boss. With great power comes great responsibility. Well, it may not be a superpower, but being your own boss still comes with responsibility. You become responsible of your time leading you to learning time management. You become accountable to your decisions resulting in wise decision-makings.

Network marketing vs. Offshore Staffing

Bright as the benefits might appear to be, disadvantages also abound in such arrangements. To have higher profits, one has to sell more of the company products that may vary from discounted beauty products to unbearably priced food supplements. What’s more, he has to recruit more people so as to exceed, not just meet, the high-leverage quotas set on a monthly basis. Another disdvantage is the few success stories of networking members. Hundreds of networking companies promise high profits. What contributes to the dearth of such success stories (despite the numerous testimonials) is the get-rich-quick marketing and recruiting schemes that easily demoralize a member who lacks patience and suddenly realizes the impossibility of such a scheme. On the other hand, the rise of business process outsourcing or BPOs in the Philippines also increased a Pinoy’s awareness to improve his English proficiency and the interest to have financial assurance.

Below are just some of the advantages of being employed becoming an outsourced staff:

Enjoy a regular salary and several benefits. If you do freelance work (read: you’re the boss!), cash flow may not be as regular as what companies can offer. If you are hired by a company, say a call center, as an entry-level employee, you will receive a semi-monthly pay unless stated otherwise in the contract. This way you can easily schedule the payment of your bills, bank transactions, and shopping, of course.

Stay at par with competition. Your competitive spirit will surely be pu to the test once you are hired by a company. As you work with your colleagues, you will realize that some, if not most, can be more talented, skilled or intelligent than you are. So you tend to outperform the others who appear to be better. If viewed optimistically, competition can be healthy and may result in mutual cooperation.

Ascend the corporate ladder. One of the opportunities presented to you as an employee is of career growth. From the ranks, you may find yourself rising to the managerial position. This vertical movement upgrades not only your salary but also your workload. Working from home where you are the boss cannot give you such an opportunity – to visualize yourself clawing your up using your skills and knowldge with a lot of help from perseverance and determination.

Being an employee of such corporations, you are tied not only to your contract but also to the drawbacks. You will be more exposed to stress – time observance, colleague competition, overtime for more profit, corporate standards, payroll deductions and others.

In philosophy, a thesis will always have an antithesis. A concession between the two will lead to a synthesis. Most Pinoys will think that the synthetic solution to enjoy self-responsibility and financial assurance is to look for overseas employment (or romance!). Once they have moved abroad, they become responsible of and to themselves. As an employee, they are also assured of financial security. However, the major disadvantage here is one has to be away from his friends, his family, his home. Thus, the ultimate synthesis to take advantage of all the benefits is opting for the offshore staff career path.

Based in Sydney, Australia, RemoteStaff.com.ph provides offshore staff to several companies in Australia using the internet and softphones as the primary means of communication. Applications and matchings between offshore staff contractors and Filipino professionals are done online. As a virtual staff, you can enjoy the benefits of working from home (self-responsibility) and a periodic salary (financial assurance).

In the succeeding articles, you will find out the advantages far outnumber the disadvantages of becoming a contracted offshore staff under RemoteStaff.com.ph

Intereste in work at home jobs? Visit www.RemoteStaff.com.ph