Investors ready for Call Center City

CEBU, Philippines — Several companies have already signified interest to assist the Cebu City government in establishing the Call Center City at the South Road Properties.

Mayor Tomas Osmeña said majority of the call center companies in the city are interested to undertake the project.

“Our survey shows that at least 95 percent of the call center agents are interested in this program. We interviewed 11,000 call center agents,” he said in a phone interview with reporters yesterday.

Osmeña said that Qualfon President Abelardo Cruz, who came from United States, visited him last Monday informing him that the company is willing to invest the first building of the Call Center City.

The Call Center City is a one-stop shop for outsourcing where all amenities like a dormitory, offices for call center, facilities for education, gym, restaurants, among others, will be offered to the agents.

The investors, however, want Osmeña to get reelected first before pouring in their money for the project. The investors are apprehensive that the implementation of the project might be stopped if another mayor wins the 2019 elections.

“Well, the investors told me you have to win the elections first. They like the project but how can they enter right now and I’m not mayor anymore. They said you have to win the elections first then we’ll move,” he said.

Osmeña said there are several variations that the city can avail on how to undertake the project such as public bidding, unsolicited proposal, public-private partnership, among others.

“There’s many variations. The important is to make it easy for the call center agents and people like you that you can work, without quitting your job, finish master’s degree or finish college,” he said.

Osmeña said the project will assist the college graduate to get a master’s degree, assist the college level agents to get college diploma, and assist the high school graduates to finish college.

The Call Center City will also incorporate a dormitory in the same workplace of the agents, he said. He said call center agents will no longer worry about the time they usually spend in going to work, school, and home with the project.

“You will have to consider taking a pay cut of 30-40 percent to pay for your board and schooling, but the idea is that you come out of this program completely debt-free while still earning enough to survive,” reads the mayor’s post on his official Facebook page.

The initial plan is for the city to lend the land to the investors for free as contribution of the city in this project. Osmeña said he envisioned to put up the BPO city at the 60-hectare Pond A at SRP which is bigger than the I.T. Park.

“Stores, gyms, bars, restaurants, movie houses will open at 3 a.m. or whenever your free time is. It will be designed to your time zone. The commercial activity must be responsive to your limited budget – no high end living here but it will be clean, decent and drug-free,” he added.

With this project, Osmeña said the city will be producing 20,000 to 40,000 master's degree holders regularly. He said the city will soon have the “most educated workforce, and eventually, the most educated population in the Philippines.” (FREEMAN)