Pinoy Sites in U.S. Cyberspace
Mike Banos
March 27, 2006
An increasing number of Pinoy webmasters are finding the advantages of positioning their sites in lucrative U.S. markets in cyberspace. Of course, the advantage of being an English-speaking country is obviously one of the main reasons for that, although the quality of fresh graduates spoken and written English has become suspect as of late, leaving call centers managers and webmasters tearing their hair and wringing their hands as their dreams of mega cyber dollars pixelizing in the increasingly competitive market for good English speakers and writers.
One such site situated locally has been recruiting heavily from the city?s only Jesuit university but due to the time difference between the U.S. and the Philippines, has been having the devil of a time keeping its people, most of whom are part-time students thinking they can make an easy buck doing the graveyard shift from 10AM to 6PM , sleeping in the morning and studying in the afternoon.
As many of their counterparts in the call centers have already found out to their sorrow, it doesn?t always work out the way they planned it. They often end up sick physically and drained mentally so by the time class hours roll around, they?d rather be spending some shut-eye accumulating credits to pay off the deficit for that increasingly common malady known as ?sleep deprivation.? Mess with that biorhythm, babe, and you can be sure it?s gonna mess you back, big-time!
But English is not all the comparative advantage there is for Pinoy webmasters. The cost of doing business itself is but a fraction of what it would be in the U.S., so local sites can easily undercut competitors from back there. Salaries and wages, electricity, rent, capital costs of computers and other related equipment, all translate into an inbuilt cost advantage local webmasters can use to devastating effect in the highly competitive world market for cyber products and services. That?s globalization for you!
Outsourcing is an especially lucrative growth market, although other more ambitious adventurers are also eyeing esoteric mega-buck niches such as U.S. politics where voters spent a mind boggling $1.6 billion in the 2004 presidential elections, although how U.S. voters notorious for their insularity would take to offshore Pinoys messing with their continental politics remains to be seen.
Well and good, but there must be a downside to all this, right? What?s the catch, Kix? Equity, for one. Am not sure, but there must be dozens of unregistered firms doing business for every one that?s legit and registered with the DTI, City Hall and BIR.
Result? No local revenue for the host cities and national government, unless they really crack down on these ?fly-by-night? (literally!) operations which wily entrepreneurs can always label as their ?personal projects.? That?s doublespeak for telling you they?ll pay you the full amount of your salary, no withholding tax and other deductions for SSS, Medicare and Pag-IBIG.
Being mostly undergrads or fresh graduates with stars in their eyes, many workers in these underground websites are much too busy licking their chops at the thought of having their cake and eating it too, to realize too late (to paraphrase the famous vitamin ad) na ?bawal ang magkasakit? (its forbidden to get sick) and all the mega vitamins, food supplements and wonder products can?t cheat their bodies of their rightful share of rest and breaks from stress.
As the medical expenses mount and they start falling sick in increasing numbers very quickly, disillusionment sets in, and the grass begins to look very much greener indeed for their classmates who stuck to their studies and went on to get lucrative paying ?real jobs? in legitimate businesses, complete with full employee benefits and bonuses.
So what can local governments and parents do to ensure their children are working for legitimate businesses which are not rolling in the cyber dollars at the expense of their children?s youth, vim and vitality? Start cracking down on fly-by-night operators for one. In the internet caf?usiness for instance, some 7,000 are legitimate and an estimated 2,000 are illegal.
These illegal computer shops gnaw away at the market share of legitimate Internet cafes since they don?t have business permits, use pirated operating systems and personal DSL subscription plans instead of Internet business packages. A business DSL subscription costs 6,000 pesos a month compared to only 1,000 for illegals. Why ISPs continue to tolerate this practice which obviously cost them dearly in lost revenues is beyond me.
As a result of this and the cumulative effects of the RVAT and rising costs of computer parts, the Internet Caf?ssociation of the Philippines (ICAP) says around 200 of their members have already closed shop from 1,100 original members in 2004.
But hand-in-hand with bringing down the sledgehammer on fly-by-night illegals should be the carrot to encourage such unlisted establishments to turn legit and be an asset to their host communities, instead of sucking the flower of our youth dry to serve foreign markets (however welcome the cyber dollars from such far off places may be) when they can better reciprocate to the places which nurtured them and developed their latent talents and abilities to what they are now.
INDNJC -
One such site situated locally has been recruiting heavily from the city?s only Jesuit university but due to the time difference between the U.S. and the Philippines, has been having the devil of a time keeping its people, most of whom are part-time students thinking they can make an easy buck doing the graveyard shift from 10AM to 6PM , sleeping in the morning and studying in the afternoon.
As many of their counterparts in the call centers have already found out to their sorrow, it doesn?t always work out the way they planned it. They often end up sick physically and drained mentally so by the time class hours roll around, they?d rather be spending some shut-eye accumulating credits to pay off the deficit for that increasingly common malady known as ?sleep deprivation.? Mess with that biorhythm, babe, and you can be sure it?s gonna mess you back, big-time!
But English is not all the comparative advantage there is for Pinoy webmasters. The cost of doing business itself is but a fraction of what it would be in the U.S., so local sites can easily undercut competitors from back there. Salaries and wages, electricity, rent, capital costs of computers and other related equipment, all translate into an inbuilt cost advantage local webmasters can use to devastating effect in the highly competitive world market for cyber products and services. That?s globalization for you!
Outsourcing is an especially lucrative growth market, although other more ambitious adventurers are also eyeing esoteric mega-buck niches such as U.S. politics where voters spent a mind boggling $1.6 billion in the 2004 presidential elections, although how U.S. voters notorious for their insularity would take to offshore Pinoys messing with their continental politics remains to be seen.
Well and good, but there must be a downside to all this, right? What?s the catch, Kix? Equity, for one. Am not sure, but there must be dozens of unregistered firms doing business for every one that?s legit and registered with the DTI, City Hall and BIR.
Result? No local revenue for the host cities and national government, unless they really crack down on these ?fly-by-night? (literally!) operations which wily entrepreneurs can always label as their ?personal projects.? That?s doublespeak for telling you they?ll pay you the full amount of your salary, no withholding tax and other deductions for SSS, Medicare and Pag-IBIG.
Being mostly undergrads or fresh graduates with stars in their eyes, many workers in these underground websites are much too busy licking their chops at the thought of having their cake and eating it too, to realize too late (to paraphrase the famous vitamin ad) na ?bawal ang magkasakit? (its forbidden to get sick) and all the mega vitamins, food supplements and wonder products can?t cheat their bodies of their rightful share of rest and breaks from stress.
As the medical expenses mount and they start falling sick in increasing numbers very quickly, disillusionment sets in, and the grass begins to look very much greener indeed for their classmates who stuck to their studies and went on to get lucrative paying ?real jobs? in legitimate businesses, complete with full employee benefits and bonuses.
So what can local governments and parents do to ensure their children are working for legitimate businesses which are not rolling in the cyber dollars at the expense of their children?s youth, vim and vitality? Start cracking down on fly-by-night operators for one. In the internet caf?usiness for instance, some 7,000 are legitimate and an estimated 2,000 are illegal.
These illegal computer shops gnaw away at the market share of legitimate Internet cafes since they don?t have business permits, use pirated operating systems and personal DSL subscription plans instead of Internet business packages. A business DSL subscription costs 6,000 pesos a month compared to only 1,000 for illegals. Why ISPs continue to tolerate this practice which obviously cost them dearly in lost revenues is beyond me.
As a result of this and the cumulative effects of the RVAT and rising costs of computer parts, the Internet Caf?ssociation of the Philippines (ICAP) says around 200 of their members have already closed shop from 1,100 original members in 2004.
But hand-in-hand with bringing down the sledgehammer on fly-by-night illegals should be the carrot to encourage such unlisted establishments to turn legit and be an asset to their host communities, instead of sucking the flower of our youth dry to serve foreign markets (however welcome the cyber dollars from such far off places may be) when they can better reciprocate to the places which nurtured them and developed their latent talents and abilities to what they are now.
INDNJC -
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