racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

I’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

We 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

Here’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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One of the drawbacks of being in pro-blogging and engaging in various online / “virtual” types of businesses is that there will inevitably be people who misunderstand you and your career. In this day and age of broadband, mobile commerce and e- (or m-) everything, there will always be people who seem to be on the regressive side of the equation. Yes, even younger people–even younger than myself perhaps.

A couple of weeks back, I was at a relative’s house visiting with the wife and kids, and an uncle was presently having a business meeting (I was supposed to have been part of that venture, but I had been busy. Very.). Of course the laid back individual that I am, I was wearing my signature khaki shorts, plain T-shirt and leather sandals–my usual casual attire when not going to meetings or upscale places.

Kids needed milk so I went to the living room–where we had earlier set our things down–to get the big canvas bag we use to keep the kids’ bags and stuff for easy handling. It was also there where the meeting was taking place. I was introduced by our uncle to one of his associates. And she immediately noticed the bag, which had a big Pfizer logo emblazoned on the front.

“Are you a medical rep?” asked the besuited lady.

“Umm. No,” I responded.

My uncle said I was into various online ventures, and he also asked me how business was.

“Very busy lately,” I responded. “Many times I even stay up two days in a row just to get things done.”

“So you work at a call center?” the kind lady asked, probably thinking that the only people who stay up late to work are those in these offshored contact center industries.

“Umm, no. I work for myself. I write. I’m also in the business of providing content to online publications, and I do publish my work on my own websites,” I kindly explained, gesturing as how one would usually type on the keyboard.

Confused looks.

By this time I was sort of exasperated and said my good-byes, smiling politely.

I could only imagine how confused that young lady might have been (young being approximately the same age as I), encountering someone with no clear job description and probably not having a regular job at all.

For all she knows I might be just some unemployed guy bumming around at home.

I do have a job (or a business or a venture, or whatever you may call it). I do write for this great blog network, Bloggy Network, and I do consulting work with the company that co-owns Bloggy, and yes I’m trying to wrap up my government project that I started months ago. Oh yes, I do try to help other people GTD (get things done) with online productivity tools–pro bono, of course. However, like many entrepreneurs and netrepreneurs and freelancers, I work from my SOHO (small office/home office, which I usually consider to be my small–very–home office).

But most people would be baffled with the idea of anyone earning without having to wake up in the early morning hours and beating the rush hour traffic. For most, it’s the job title and job security that matter. But for me, I love the fact that I create, that I use my mind to think up great things and share them with the world just with a few strokes of my keyboard.

I write. And I’m glad to say for a fact that I’ve somewhat inspired–or even influenced–other people to do the same too, that is to make a living practicing their gift with the written word. They’re probably better than me at this, but I do believe that writing style is only as good as the idea that one is trying to convey and the effort and discipline that a person puts into his craft (or art, as I prefer).

To each his own, I guess.

I’ve had it with these establishments pretending to be upscale cafés or coffee shops. It seems that everywhere there’s a supposedly quiet and comfortable café where you can find a quiet spot to lounge in and perhaps get some work done via the WiFi network (which ain’t free anyway!). But alas! People always manage to make it so noisy with their useless chatter.

I’m at Starbucks right now, and it sounds like a frickin’ high school cafeteria (not that I didn’t have fond memories of my ol’ high school cafeteria–mmm, food!).

My point is that these establishments are ideally where people go to jumpstart mornings with their daily dose of caffeine, or relax after a day’s work, or even do work itself (I call WiFi-enabled cafes my satellite offices).

Or are libraries the only quiet places you can find these days?

I’m all right with the occasional meetings and chit-chat; these are generally productive conversations. But kids these days–they seem to feel so at home with these establishments that they generally tend to be unmindful of the rest of the world with their screams and rambunctious banter. Yes, screams. And rambunctious banter.

And by kids, I mean college-aged or probably recent-entrants to the workforce (a.k.a., “hell”). Hey, I’m still in my mid-twenties and I can say that more or less I try to act a bit more maturely when I’m in public (okay, I drool sometimes and ogle when I see cool gadgets!).

Two words for you people: grow up! And why not try to patronize some of the establishment’s goods for a change? Don’t just sit there. Go buy something. These cafés are not there for free table space.

I think this is the norm in my country, or perahaps in my metropolis. I hear people are usually more, umm, civilized in other parts of the world.

That’s why I usually bring along my personal Digital Noise Reduction System ™. My good set broke a couple of weeks back, though.

Or it’s probably just me. Sorry–just ranting here!

Earlier this afternoon, I perused a copy of the Philippine Internet Review: 10 years of internet in the Philippines (1994-2004) (thank you for the complimentary copy, Janette!). I haven’t finished up with the whole thing, but the writeups by Janette, Migs, and Danny (and as well the other writers) were all very enlightning, so far. However, one thing prevailed in my mind while reading: Where was I during all this?

I have always considered myself to be at the forefront of technology–or at least I try to keep abreast of whatever’s new and whatever’s happening. Back during the heyday of the BBS, I was quite active in the community (I even operated my own BBS and started a Fidonet-based network). When the Web as we know it was young, I also tried to get in the scene, being active in forums, message groups, and trying to learn Web markup.

Of course, I didn’t get anywhere near what those featured in the book had accomplished. And somehow, I think I never will, simply because I’d rather not be in the middle of things–I’d rather work behind the scenes, or even observe from the outside, looking at things from that excellent vantage point. Better perspectives? Probably.

In the online world and the Internet-related industries, I believe there are influential and accomplished people who are, and will be, prominently featured as movers and shakers. And my hat’s off to them. However, things tend to happen simultaneously, and there are also important things that happen in the background, behind the limelight, and on the sidelines.

I’d rather not forget the contributions of everyone else, though. In this world in which everything is connected, everyone has a part to play after all. We’re one big community of creators (and consumers). That’s probably a better definition of “World Wide Web.”

I know some people who truly are movers and shakers, but would rather not be named, and would rather remain in the sidelines, content that the work they begin meets success at the hands of others. They’re still truly the ones at the helm of everything, though.

It’s like being a covert operative connected to a group of other similar people within a super-secret organization–trying to shape world affairs without being noticed.

And in a way, I feel that I’m doing the same, in my own small ways. But then again, the smallest of snowflakes can start an avalanche.

So here’s to ten–or rather, twelve–years of the Philippine Internet!

I’m taking a short break from blogging momentarily (and yes, I’ll be offline). A blogger can have writer’s (or blogger’s?) block, too, you know. And I need to catch up on my ZZZs. You may be wondering about the title, as this post’s dated Tuesday, the 16th. Well, let’s just say it’s not the 16th in all parts of the world yet–and my days usually extend well into after midnight, and my body and mind’s clock usually gets confused with this more-than-24-hour day setting (for instance, Sunday was an all-nighter–extending well into Monday).

In the meantime, let me direct you to a few blogs/writeups I find interesting (okay, some of which I’ve written):

* On bTelevisions, I write on my kid, the TV addict.
* Yuga has thoughts on disabling right-clicking (I agree–don’t!).
* Mon talks on social engineering (don’t fall victim to scams!).
* Mikey needs a health check.
* RM talks on the sustainability of regulation.
* Kira muses on beauty and fashion.
* Corsarius is in a void.
* Here’s Ia’s interesting site on, umm, interesting Web 2.0 names.

That’s about it for now. I’m signing off. Hope to see you in a few hours (of course, by the time you read this, I’ll probably be back already).