Garcia: ‘Call Center City’ needs more study

CEBU, Philippines — Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s plan to put up a Call Center City at the South Road Properties sits well with opposition councilors but they have a condition: the deal should benefit the city.

Councilor Raymond Alvin Garcia said he will always support the business process outsourcing industry, which, according to him, started during the time of his father, former Cebu City mayor Alvin Garcia.

Garcia said his father was instrumental to the formulation of the Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology (CEDFIT), a consortium of government agencies and other stakeholders that seek to increase the quantity and quality of professionals in information and communications technology.

“Akong amahan ang nangulo kadtong mayor pa siya, and it had developed and boomed from then on. Supportive gyud ko aning call centers as they provide jobs (for the Cebuanos),” he said.

Garcia, however, said the City Council should study the terms and conditions of the transaction to ensure that the city government would benefit from it.

Initially, Osmeña said investors will be lending the city’s 60-hectare Pond A property at SRP for the Call Center City. Garcia said this should be studied further before the city enters into an agreement with locators.

Councilor Joel Garganera also said the mayor should first address the traffic problem at SRP before the Call Center City is established.

He said Cebu South Coastal Road is essential for southbound vehicles, especially now that the southern corridor is plagued with horrendous traffic because of the ongoing construction of an underpass along Natalio Bacalso Avenue.

At the moment, SRP is home to three access roads; Mambaling access road, the viaduct area, and the Talisay City’s side.

Garganera said he will file a resolution in the next regular session urging the Office of the Mayor to release an update on the construction and clearing of the Pardo access road in SRP to lessen traffic congestion there.

“The mayor is eyeing to generate 30,000 to 40,000 jobs in SRP for the Call Center City, asa mana nimo paagi-on?” he said.

Osmeña plans to start the Call Center City after the May 2019 elections.

Meanwhile, persons with disabilities (PWDs) trooped to the City Hall yesterday to join the 11th year of local job fair organized by the Department of Manpower Development and Placement and Department of Social Welfare and Development in partnership with BPO firms.

Started last July 20, the program, according to DMDP director Fidel Magno, is intended PWDs in Cebu and is part of the celebration of the National Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation Week.

Magno said more or less 300 PWDs apply for the program every year. Of the number, about 20-43 percent gets hired. — Carl James T. Cabarles, USJ-R Intern/JMD (FREEMAN)