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PayPal: One Great Way to Improve the Philippine Economy

Author: J. Angelo Racoma Category: Business, Economics, The Internet, Work Tags: advocacy, Business, Economics, employment, freelancing, lobbying, money, paypal, Philippines, politics, society, The Internet, Work Views: 53882

Friday
Jul 7, 2006

EconomyI’ve had it with petty bickerings in government and among politicians in this quaint little country of mine. People talk about big-time issues like constitutional change, corruption and the like, but people still seem to advance their own interests, while sacrificing the welfare of the rest of us in the process. This is why I choose to be apolitical. I’ve never voted in my entire life. Some might say I’m wasting the potentials of my vote. But what worth would that vote be if the supposed wisdom of the masses (which is the point of democracy) produces crappy leadership (and perhaps followership)?

And we know that crappy leadership causes instability in the economy, which causes us to remain poor, which causes people to have the tendency to make wrong decisions*, which causes us to choose crappy leaders.

Or at least the economist in me would say that.

*I have no bias against the poor, but I think to uplift one’s status in life, one has to think rich!

Employment, Underemployment, Unemployment

The NannyWe are at 12% rate of unemployment and 20% of the workforce is underemployed.

We have a million people leaving the country each year to work overseas as nannies, caregivers and domestic helpers (most, though not all), when a lot of these people used to have knowledge-based work or at least white-collar work–as accountants, teachers, and the like–in the country. I have nothing against offering care to those who need it (hey, my kids need a nanny. Give me a buzz if you know someone!) or doing household work, which is also an honorable means to make a living. However, I just don’t feel it’s right to let one’s profession and skills atrophy just because the pay is better in nominal terms somewhere else.

They are considered modern-day heroes. They send in money from abroad in the form of remittances to their families here. They bolster our economy by contributing to the supply of foreign currency in circulation (which keeps the value of the Peso from falling, but that might be a concern for the export sector–but, alas, we digress).

But this is at the expense of family life. Imagine, mother and father leaving their kids under the care of relatives or other people just to make a decent living.

The other side of the coin is the trend of offshored businesseses coming into the country. Yes, it’s cool that foreign companies choose to outsource their transaction-based jobs here to us. There are the call centre agents, the medical transcriptionists, and the technical support people. There are also other white-collar undertakings such as accounting, software development and the like.

However, I still consider it to be unfair to the people involved, namely those who are employed in the BPO sector. My reason? It’s the companies that gain much of the benefit. Granted, they set up the infrastructure and they take on the overhead for operations. This emboldens them to take a big cut of the compensation pie. When American, British, or other European firms pay about $1,000 to $1,500 per month per call centre seat, the actual call centre agent only gets about PhP 15,000 to 20,000 (or $300 to 400) of that amount. Add to that the health issues brought about by having to work in shifts and having to change shifts every so often (which is a practice in the industry), then guess who’s on the losing end?

There must be another way.

My proposal

Paypal panhandler (c) London, & Diesslin, NY TimesHere’s a simple proposal of mine.

I believe there is a good pool of talented people in the Philippines just waiting to be tapped. For instance, I write. And I know people who write really well (in fact, I’ve gone as far as hiring them to work with the company I’m involved with). I also know people who can develop great web apps and create Go Ogle worthy designs, whether on their own or under the guidance of foreign visionaries.

In fact this is what we do at Enthropia. Just one of the many things, actually. There are a handful of us here in the country (as well as in other Asian countries) working on our projects and we’re on a mobile/home-based working arrangement.

We basically render work for our North America-based mother entity (likewise a lean team) and they pay us for our services. Directly. And not having to pass through some big-ass company that will take a big chunk off our earnings.

We don’t have a glitzy office in Makati or Eastwood, nor do we plan to set one up anytime soon. We each pay for our own equipment and infrastructure. We feel this current arrangement of ours lets us be robust enough to accomplish what has to be done without all the administrative overhead.

Call it freelancing. Call it the informal sector. Call it the underground economy.

Other people probably aren’t aware of the possibility that one can work for foreign companies without passing through intermediaries (or middlemen) here, nor actually going abroad. And if they were, most of the time the hindrance would be the means by which money can be transmitted.

You can render a service and send whatever needs to be sent or done by email (or IM or SMS) but money’s a different thing altogether.

Yes, there are a handful of remittance services, but here’s the problem:

* They take a big cut
* They are not convenient

If only we had PayPal in the Philippines, then I think we would be able to open to the world better means to access to our pool of talent.

In the course of my freelance work as a writer/blogger I’ve had clients who paid via money transfer and it took days, and it was expensive. Xoom? It’s a good mid-way solution, but still not as convenient as having the real deal (PayPal). After all, they still get a cut, and the paying party still has to register for an account, where his PayPal details would then be keyed in.

There’s my simple thesis.

Having PayPal in the country would greatly benefit the following people:

* Web developers,
* Designers,
* Photographers,
* Writers,
* Pro-bloggers,

and virtually anyone else who can render services remotely while corresponding via the Internet. Their correspondents can pay simply by clicking a few buttons, and that’s it.

This would be a great opportunity for both sides, as it will open up access to the supply of good talent, and as well as open up access to those who are on the demand-side.

Who said perfect capital mobility should be impossible? In this day and age, where knowledge—or rather Knowledge with a capital K—is the foremost capital, mobility knows no geographic bounds!

However, PayPal won’t deal with us. It’s probably because we have a history of having potential for money laundering activities. Or maybe it’s because of poor security in banking or credit card transactions.

The point is that we have to lobby for inclusion as a PayPal enabled country.

If our Anti-Money Laundering Act is crappy, then we should lobby for a change for the better. If implementation is poor, then we should lobby for stricter enforcement.

Let’s work together!

I’ve had a talk with an esteemed gentleman from the country’s Liberal political family, and he’s very much interested with my idea. I know this is not an original idea of mine (the need for access to online financial transactions, namely PayPal), but probably other people haven’t brought it up to the level of actually trying to do something about it.

Here’s our chance. Let’s join forces, organize, and formalize so we can better forward our cause. I’m probably not the best person to mobilize people but I sure do have a lot of ideas.

Anyone wanna be involved in this?

Updates

Sites that link to this post, as of 2006-07-24 09:41H (darn trackbacks/pingbacks aren’t working).

* Crimson Crux (Phillip Kimpo)
* Pinoytechblog (c/o Arnold Gamboa)
* Random Takes (Migs Paraz)
* The Mike Abundo Effect (okay, Mike, is there really such a thing as a Mike Abundo Effect?)
* Snow World
* TechnoPinoy (Mon Abasolo)
* Captain’s Log (Jepoy Bengero)
* Alleba Blog (Andrew dela Serna)
* Touched by an Angel (Noemi Lardizabal-Dado)
* Bubbleheadnut’s Livejournal
* Bitstop Network Services blog
* Wonderful World of Jonas
* Yugatech: PayPal in the Philippines via Xoom (Abe Olandres)
* Babelmachine: Bloggers lobby for PayPal in the Philippines (Joey Alarilla)
* Planet Pinoy Biz & Jozzua. com (both by Jozzua)
* TechnoPinoy, again (Mon would rather not have PayPal :) )

In mainstream media (papers, blogs, etc.)

* CNet Asia: Bloggers lobby for PayPal in the Philippines (by Joey Alarilla)

Posted elsewhere:

* DIGG this story!
* ForeverGeek

*Update, 2006-07-20 1500H*: We’re setting up an advocacy site, www.paypal4ph.com. Right now, the site redirects to this blog post until we come up with something better. Credits to Jason for setting up the domain and hosting. Ia will be doing the logo, and Phillip would be helping me out with the writeups (the blurbs, taglines, etc.). I hope to be able to come up with a whitepaper of sorts, as Migs suggested in a comment below.

Some words of advice

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J. Angelo Racoma is a technology journalist and blogger. See more of his blog posts here at racoma.com.ph, commentaries at racoma.net, and Twitter feed at @jangelo.
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Comments

peypal

January 1st, 2008 at 4:07 am

ok.. so there’s paypal… but does it help the ordinary Juan? i guess not.. can’t buy balot or pisbol using paypal… geez..

Reply

HsvsRsvsesv

January 19th, 2008 at 9:13 am

men’s helth

Reply

Jepot

February 1st, 2008 at 9:05 am

Why do you always want to help the ordinary Juan only? If it could help Filipinos then why not. Balut and pisbol are not the only merchandise and talent of Filipinos can offer. Think!

Reply

joe

May 2nd, 2008 at 4:04 pm

Oks paypal para sa mga freelancers, pero sa economy wa epek pa din yan.

mas malaking majority pa din ang ordinary juan…

One great way to improve the philippine economy is by fixing the Corrupt Government.

“And providing local jobs for all kind of Juan in the Philippines, most importantly the ordinary Juan…”

Reply

Dominic

May 24th, 2008 at 1:56 am

adult nighttime movies xxx
adult on demand video
adult online rental video

Reply

Sharon

June 18th, 2008 at 11:35 am

Nde ba pwede na rin ang PayPal sa pinas? Foreign companies can send money.. and we can transfer it to our bank acct and then withdraw. Maybe this needs updating.

Reply

J. Angelo Racoma

June 18th, 2008 at 2:34 pm

@Sharon – here’s the update. http://racoma.com.ph/archives/good-news-you-can-now-withdraw-paypal-funds-to-philippine-bank-accounts

Reply

sewsarron

July 2nd, 2008 at 5:16 pm

haha – too funny! Check this out for even more: adult webmaster podcast !!

Reply

Mary

July 6th, 2008 at 1:30 am

Hello there,

I really like the idea of your website. This is a big help for those Filipino who wanted to work online and receives payment thru PayPal. I think it will work.

We should be united to work hand in hand to improve our lives.

In my humble observation, the cycle of poverty corresponds with the moral and spiritual poverty.

My prayer for our country is for people (including me) to be faithful to God, to strive to live honest , clean lives and rid ourselves of PRIDE. Money is not something to pray for . Let us pray for peace, love, neighborly kindness, and every good thing that money can not buy. Look at what Filipino Hollywood has done to our country.

Let us all pray for the love of our country

Mary

I have a blog: check it out.
http://unjustedlife.blogspot.com/2008/06/inspirational-views-filipinos.html

Reply

Christian

August 13th, 2008 at 2:53 pm

I think it’s a great idea, but I wonder what we need we Filipinos need to do to have this. I’m still 15 and I’m really like the Philippines to improve! I think if we have PayPal in the Phil. it would be of great help, and I’m sure many people or Filipinos would be very happy. I hope many Filipinos would do blogs like this for the Filipinos to wake up and realize there are many hopes out there. Remember think big and dream big, but of course never forget about God his is the answer to all. God bless to all Filipinos out there and Thank you to Mr. J. Angelo Racoma for making this blog and other great blogs……^_^ Have a nice day everyone!!!

Reply

ela

January 7th, 2010 at 10:06 am

I have my money sleeping in my paypal..those are payments of my online jobs.. but couldn’t withdraw it.. i got an eon debit card for 350 pesos for one year use, and it took me 2 weeks waiting and one week waiting for activation… But still cant make to verify my card, i am advised to put 100 to my card so i can transfer my money from paypal to eon…yet there still problem arising…i am asked for paypal 4 digit code or expanded use *EXPUSE. I had difficulty finding it and yet i found it in my cyber eon banking… Then I added it to the paypal to finally get verified..huhuhuhuhuh still denied:(

Help me What Shall I Do? i am advised again to call the hotline which is always busy and can’t successfully contact them… I am almost desperate…

almost drowned with tears…..

Reply

J. Angelo Racoma

January 10th, 2010 at 11:07 pm

@Ela, if you have any regular savings account, you can withdraw money to that account. Just click the Withdraw link, select “withdraw to your bank account, and add a bank account. Refer to the PayPal bank codes here – http://www.pinoymoneytalk.com/bank-code-philippines-withdraw-paypal/ .

You may have to verify your account first to remove any withdrawal limits. You would need a valid credit or debit card (such as the EON) to do this. I believe for verification to work, you need at least a few pesos on the debit card, since PayPal will be drawing a small amount (usually a few cents) just to verify if it works, and if it’s yours.

Reply

Freelance Money Transfer

April 15th, 2010 at 3:24 pm

I am a freelance service provider of Bangladesh, I works with oDesk. But i was unknown that, how can my earnings transfered to my local bank account. Then i found a solution from blsoftmarketing freelance money transfer
And now i am fully successful for transfer my earnings. And my local account of Dutch-Bangla Bank’s is filled from my freelance earnings. I think blsoftmarketing is very useful for Bangladeshi providers.

Reply

jack

February 21st, 2011 at 6:20 pm

great idea!

Reply
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