Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.
Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far
and high into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
"The Old Poets of China" by Mary Oliver

“The BPO Industry in the Philippines: Boon or Bane?” Book Chapter by Dr. Antoinette R. Raquiza

Details

Photo (L): Dr. Raquiza, Asian Center file photo. (R): Cover of The Local Impact of Globalization in South and Southeast Asia: Offshore Business Processes in Service Industries. 

Dr. Antoinette R. Raquiza, Associate Professor at the UP Asian Center, wrote “The BPO Industry in the Philippines: Boon or Bane?” a chapter in the book, The Local Impact of Globalization in South and Southeast Asia: Offshore Business Processes in Service Industries, edited by Bart Lambregts, Niels Beerepoot, and Robert C. Kloosterman and published by Routledge in 2015.

Below is an excerpt of the chapter:

 …[T]he country’s economic take-off has come largely on the back of a surging services sector that caters to the needs of foreign markets. At the core of the Philippine pattern of trade in services is a paradox. The country has been able to distinguish itself as among the top services outsourcing destinations in the world, and its comparative advantage over other developing countries is its labor force.... The Philippines places high in BPO investors’ preferred locations largely due to its English-speaking, skilled workers, many of whom have a “cultural affinity” with the west...Yet, these same factors that bring in foreign investors (or locators), looking for a relative cost-competitive, service-oriented workforce that can relate with their international clientele, have since the 1970s promoted the outmigration of the country’s best and brightest in search of better-paying job abroad – thus producing contradictory currents in the domestic labor market.... The chapter....suggests that the tug and pull in the country's trade in services could eventually become a drag on the country’s climb up the BPO value chain unless the country broadens and diversifies the base of the real economy.  (p. 47)

For this work, Dr. Raquiza received a UP International Publication Award (IPA) in January 2016. The IPA is given to UP faculty and personnel whose research has been published in internationally peer-reviewed publications. In 2015, she also received an IPA for the journal article, “Changing Configuration of Philippine Capitalism,” published in the Philippine Political Science Journal.

Dr. Antoinette R. Raquiza teaches Southeast Asian studies and specializes in the political economy of late development, comparative political institutions, globalization, and identity politics and conflict studies. The author of State Structure, Policy Formation, and Economic Development: The Political Economy of Thailand and the Philippines (Routledge, 2012), she obtained her PhD in Political Science from the City University of New York.

The Asian Center offers M.A. degrees in Asian Studies with four fields of specialization: Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and West Asia. The Center also has an M.A. program in Philippine Studies that allows students to major in Philippine society and culture, Philippine foreign relations, or Philippine development studies. The Center offers a Ph.D. program in Philippine Studies in conjunction with the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy. For an overview of these graduate programs, click here. The Asian Center also publishes Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspectives on Asia, the latest issue of which can be downloaded at the journal's website. View recent and upcoming Lectures & Conferences and read other News & Announcements. Join our mailing list to receive invitations to lectures, conferences, etc.