Tagbilaran City/Bohol Province has been awarded and officially recognized as an emerging next center for information communications technology – business process outsourcing (ICT-BPO) in the country, which is bullishly projected to earn $25 billion three years from now. This boosted the agenda of Gov. Edgar Chatto to make the global industry the “third leg of the tripod for Bohol’s economic growth” in complement and balance with the two other development pillars which are tourism and agro-industry. The Department of Transportation and Communications – Information and Communications Technology Office (DOST-ICTO) and Information Technology Business Process Association of the Philippines (ITBPAP), with the support of the Jones Lang LaSalle and Dusit Thani – Manila, on Monday awarded “Tagbilaran City/Bohol Province” as one of the “2012 Ten Emerging Next Wave Cities” in the country.

On behalf of the provincial government, Bohol Investment Promotions Center (BIPC) head Maria Fe Dominise and Bohol ICT Council (BICTC) chair Leah Tirol-Magno received the award in formal rites at the Dusit Hotel in Makati City. The official recognition, the first of its kind for Tagbilaran City/Bohol, is critical to drawing business outsourcing investors and locators as Bohol preparations, including the infrastructure component such as the installation of the fiber optics cable which will be completed in September, are in full gear. Bohol is getting to be an important part of the telecommunications fiber optic highway with the Fiber Optic Backbone Network 2 installed by the Globe Telecom, plus the microwave (PLDT) multiple routes of SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) radio. The telecommunication giants have promised a carrying capacity of 10,500 call center seats and the redundancy and resiliency to host the BPOs.

The PLDT itself is rolling out this year over 5,000 kilometers of new fiber optic cable facilities at P2.5 billion, a link that includes submarine cables to boost the data connectivity of the islands of Bohol, Panay and Palawan. The demand for resilient data services is rising due to the booming tourism industry and BPO potentials in these areas. The recognition truly shows the commitment and excellent effort of the Bohol leadership, BICTC and industry key players to make Tagbilaran City/Bohol a preferred destination for IT and business process management operations, according DOST Usec. Louis Napoleon Casambre, who is the ICTO executive director, and Business Process Association of the Philippines (BPAP) Pres/CEO Jose Mari Mercado. Dominise said Tagbilaran City/Bohol marked so good in the scorecard for competitiveness in the cost of doing business, infrastructure and talent.

The governor could already imagine this early the employment and livelihood that the ICT-PBO could generate and contribute to the sustained effort of attaining a truly inclusive growth for the Boholanos. Chatto imagined positively ICT-BPO sector’s force to compel Bohol growth as the country has been known to be strong on outsourcing solutions such as customer relationship management (call center), human resource, finance/accounting/legal, document processing, among others. The governor declared in his reelection campaign that with the entry of the industry here, his “HEAT Bohol” slogan will level up into “HEAT IT Bohol” in the next three-years of his administration. The “HEAT” means Health & sanitation, Education & technology, Agriculture & food security, Tourism & livelihood. The “IT” is for information technology.

Of higher-value services, the knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) can follow to happen as a type of service that offers a longer term of sustainable growth for the outsourcing industry in the country---and Bohol in years to come, the governor said. The KPO is concerned with the off-shoring of knowledge-intensive work whereas BPO deals with the overall processes involving technical support, transaction processing, customer care and telemarketing to boost up business. Dominise said the province under Chatto and Vice Gov. Concepcion Lim is right in seeing the necessity of enabling measure on local tax incentives and other schemes that tempt more investors to Bohol. Tax holidays and incentives are among the best things anticipated by some investors to happen before they go full speed on their registered investment plans, the BIPC official hinted. Another awaited major occurrence is the new Bohol airport on Panglao island.

Chatto is strongly optimistic that the ICT-BPO, which is eyed to employ between 1.3 million and 1.5 million Filipinos in 2016, will help sum up the projected economic gains from the operation of the new airport hopefully by the same year. The airport project is set for concrete implementation starting late this year or early 2014 and completion before Pres. Benigno S. Aquino III’s term ends at noon of June 30 in 2016. Considered a significant economic infrastructure, the airport of international standard will boost tourism which, according to the Department of Tourism (DOT), hit a national record high of 1.27 million arrivals in the January-March period this year. The figure constitutes a 10.76% increase as against the tourist arrivals in the same quarter last year.

BOHOL HOSTING ICT NATIONAL SUMMIT

Another boosting development is Bohol’s hosting to the 6th ICT National Summit in November, during which ICT councils from all major cities and provinces tackle the improvement of ICT ecosystems in the countryside, updates on BPO and human capital development, and areas of collaboration to generate jobs and investments. “We have yet to make a hit on ICT-BPO, and we are surely getting there,” Dominise declared said. This explains for the sustained partnership between the provincial government and BICT, which is multi-sectoral, on the many highlight activities of the local ICT sector leading to the conferment of the title to Tagbilaran City/Bohol as an emerging next wave city in the Philippines. These include the consultative meetings with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) and with former CICT Sec. John Ivan Uy; 1st Bohol ICT Summit in 2011; ICT/BPO/KPO benchmarking mission in Manila and Davao; and ASEAN ICT Summit in Cebu City. The province and BICTC also tied up for the ICT Business Forum on Creating Bohol Brand in the Promising ICT-BPO Industry which was attended by DOST-ICTO, BPAP and Call Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) officials. This was followed by the Bohol ICT Roadshow which speakers included officials of the DOST-ICTO, BPAP, Animation Councils of the Philippines (ACP), Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP), Healthcare Tech and Management Association of the Philippines (HTMAP), Philippine Software Association (PSA), and Davao ICT Council. There was a separate ICT-BPO healthcare technology exploratory visit here, followed by Bohol’s participation to the 5th ICT National Summit in Laguna, where Bohol was officially declared the host of the next national summit this coming November.

ECONOMIC VALUE OF GOOD LEADER

According to the business community, another crucial Bohol event closely monitored not just by potential IT-BPO investors was the outcome of the May 13 elections, in which Chatto rewrote Bohol’s political and electoral history. The reelectionist governor amassed 380,964 votes over his “closest” rival, Che Delos Reyes, who only tallied 164,904 votes, thereby causing a lead of 216,060 votes---the biggest margin in a bitter gubernatorial race in the history of Bohol. Chatto broke his own record set in his first gubernatorial run in 2010 against former Vice Gov. Julius Caesar Herrera whom he defeated by a lead of over 56,000 votes. This record had even already shattered the one made by the late Gov. Erico Aumentado. Chatto’s far more historic performance in the last May 13 polls is thought to have only compacted further his moral ascendancy and credibility. There are investors and development partners who find a province’s great economic value and growth potential in the credibility of its leader, according to the business sector. (Ven rebo Arigo)