AMA Graduation Speech

Following is the speech of PD Jong Fortunato, who was the commencement speaker during the graduation exercises of AMA Computer College on May 30 at Bethel Guest House:

Let me thank you for inviting me to be your graduation speaker. It’s 
quite unusual for us in Dumaguete to have a graduation just as classes are 
about to start - my son, in fact, left just yesterday because his classes 
start on June 1 in Iloilo.

I believe I was invited because we at DTI have been at the forefront 
inviting IT investors to set up shop here and since that has been one 
of our greatest successes, let me share with you how we did it.

My job at DTI has always been to help develop industry and SME’s, 
especially if that industry or enterprise is export-oriented (like the 
stone-craft or dried fruits that we produce here), labor intensive and 
use our available resources. That was in effect a major strategy used not 
just  by our country but even by all our neighbors. That’s why we have many 
export processing zones and industrial zones in all regions. And for 
the 20 or so years that I have been here, we always looked at it that way 
until we realized one day that there was another industry that was right in our 
midst and even had more potential and promise.

I am talking about our education industry. Cebu’s growth was due to a 
large part to trading and now the manufacturing zones in Mactan and so it is 
a business center, while we in Dumaguete have always been known as the 
education center in the south. Most students now watch tv and 
entertainment stuff than read our history books, so it might interest you to know 
that when the Americans took over the Philippines in 1898 the first-ever 
private school they set up in our country was right here in Silliman…so we have 
a long history of education behind us.

Another trivia  as early as 1958, three of the top government officials 
in the land were graduates of Dumaguete  the President of our Republic was 
Carlos P Garcia, the Secretary of Education was Jose E Romero and the 
President of the Univ. of the Philippines was none other than Dr. 
Vicente G. Sinco.

Going back to our education industry, we did a study and found out that 
a third of the sales from the shops here in Dumaguete is education- 
related  notice there are now 30,000 plus students here and a good 
number of them are foreigners. Which brought us to another discovery  
education can also be an export industry. In just the same way that tourism can 
bring in dollars, education is the same  the Koreans, Iranians and other 
foreigners who study, live, and travel around here are spreading their 
money to all sectors of our society and is revitalizing our community. 
Our research has shown that Australia’s No. 8 export is also education  
more than 250,000 foreigners study in Australian colleges and universities. 
Aside from the economic benefits, the more important thing is that when
they go back to their hometowns they will hopefully spread the good 
news what they learned here, the hospitable Dumaguetenos they met here and 
the overall experience they enjoyed here, which will in turn encourage 
others to follow suit.

We also tried to do some re-assessment of our assets  if the product of 
say, Boracay, are the beaches and resorts galore, our best know product 
here are the excellent human resources that graduate thru out higher 
education institutions. You might say, hey most other regional capitals 
like Tacloban or Cagayan de Oro also produce thousands of graduates. I 
believe our distinctive advantage is we have some of the best schools 
in the country. Silliman is probably THE most significant schools outside 
of Metro Manila. And out of the 20 autonomous universities in the whole 
country, two are here in Dumaguete, meaning they don’t have to ask CHED 
permits every time they increase their fees or offer new subjects. 
Foundation University, meanwhile, is on tract to becoming an international
university and last year even had a British guy managing its high 
school department.

So two and a half years ago, we started doing road shows in Manila 
about our excellent human resources. At that time, we already knew the key 
criteria call centers and BPO’s were looking for was hirability and 
retention rates. In Manila the hiring rate now is 2%, meaning out of 
every 100 applicants only 2 get the job. Imagine the horror if you were a 
recruitment officer and you had to fill up, let us say a 100-seat facility, 
you would be needing something like 5,000 people. And that really is a 
problem  some companies are putting up mega call centers which have 
2,000 seats and if you work the numbers, you will see that they will need to 
interview 100,000 people. Imagine that…and no wonder the infrastructure 
in Manila will always be bursting at its seams  they need thousands of 
people every day to interview.

Our game plan was to meet with the most senior people in offices and 
organizations and assure them they would not suffer this fate. And 
since this was done in Manila and you know how expensive things are in Manila 
and we had a limited budget, we tried to “think global, but act local”, 
meaning scheduling our meetings at around 11am so they could invite us for 
lunch or calling on our better-off kababayans there to take us to dinner. This 
was very effective because we would be able to inform them what we were 
doing, convince them, and at the same time they would go out of their way to 
look for other friends that we could bring our message to, so this was a 
very good networking strategy.

Our team included a Dumagueteno who became the CEO of a major international 
company and now semi-retired here, the Chairman of the Board of one of 
the universities here, a Peace Corp guy who was working with us at DTI on 
business development and an IT professional working with IBM at that 
time. So the five of us were a good mix representing government, academe and 
the private sector. Of course from time to time the Governor or his representative
would join us on these getting-to-know-you trips. On hindsight this was also
very important because most of the people we were seeing were American executives
and it kind of reassured them that we knew what they were looking for and could deliver on it.

Aside from expats, we also talked to policy makers, heads of the 
foreign Chambers of Commerce in Makati and always about Why Dumaguete. In late 
May 2004 or exactly 2 years ago, we were able to host the CEO of a company 
who had never stepped foot outside of Luzon because he was always abroad 
looking at their operations in the US, India and Europe. He was very 
much surprised that a city our size had access to the country’s most 
advanced telecom infrastructure. He liked the small town atmosphere and we even 
brought him to Valencia and had lunch al fresco and under the trees and 
he aid that in Manila, this was easily a two-hour ride. More importantly, 
he promised he would send a team over to do a more comprehensive 
assessment. The rest is history  the team came in August, did interviews in 
September, started training in October, looked at prospective office sites that 
same month, and commenced operations in December that year. We were there 
every step of the way - calling friends who had jobs but who were looking for 
better jobs to apply, looking for temporary recruitment facilities and 
staff apartments and introducing them to the community. Today, barely 
18 months after they started operations, they already have 600 people and 
I don’t know any company here that has grown that much that fast. I am 
also happy to say a good number of them come from… AMA!

Our second success story is TeleTech. The expat running the Philippine 
operations also heads Asian operations which include Korea and China, 
and we were the first provincial office to invite them to look at sites 
other than Manila. They were expanding very fast and knew the problems of 
just locating in Manila so when he came here to visit, we gave him the red 
carpet treatment, doing courtesy calls on the Governor and our Mayor 
who assured them of safety (this is very important to them as we are near 
to Mindanao and you know what the average American conjures up when they 
hear that place) and of course they feel better when we bring them to dinner 
at the boulevard and they see all the foreigners going about. We give them 
a guided tour of the city and the different universities and colleges and 
my having researched on the history of our place helped somewhat.

At the time we met the executives at Teletech, they were still intent 
on getting a good foothold in Manila and they were just planning their 
first foray in the suburbs of Novaliches. To make the story short, the Peace 
Corp guy working with us in promoting Dumaguete was hired by Teletech as a 
Business Development Manager when his contract ended and he was the one 
who really pushed for setting up in Dumaguete. In October of last year, 
they presented to Dumaguete City officials a plan for the “managed growth of 
the call center industry”, meaning they wanted a timeframe of three years 
so they could hire the most number of people without fear of poaching or 
pirating but more importantly because for the 300-seat operation they 
planned here, they were not sure about the hiring rate. Even if the 
rate here would be 10% or 5 times higher than Manila’s, there was no 
assurance on this. When they were finally granted the “First Mover Incentive”
and started hiring though, they were surprised because they had 20% plus 
hiring rate.

Right now you probably know a friend or relative who is applying at, or 
working for TeleTech. They now have more than 100 people and will hire 
more as soon as they will occupy the first building that is now going up at 
Dumaguete Business Park in Calindagan.

So in just two years time, we can proudly say that we did the 
following:
·   Have aggressively promoted Negros Oriental as the next “hot 
spot” for IT services after Manila and Cebu, resulting in the first new 
investment here in our Province in the last 20 years
·   A PEZA registered IT Park, one of the few outside of Manila and 
Cebu, which is in fact located in Bacong, a fourth-class municipality
·   Even in the Animation Industry, a local company is now doing 
outsourcing work for a Manila-based company

So IT is spearheading the development of our City and we at DTI can say 
that our graduation gift to you is the prospect of more jobs here.

Before I end, let me leave you with some words of advice…

First, just because you have graduated doesn’t mean you stop learning. 
Learning never stops and the more skills you have, the more you will be 
“in demand” whether this will be fixing things or making things happen. I 
fervently wish you would start your own businesses but in our culture, 
we start by working for others. Most likely it will be working for a small 
office or a big organization and this requires “soft” skills. Examples 
are communication skills such as verbal, written and listening. Verbal is 
something that we do day in and day out and its always nice if we can 
say things nicely and not rudely. To me, some of the nicest people are 
those who can “disagree agreeably”. So even if you will not be working for a 
call center fielding calls from irate Americans, it will help if you read up 
to improve on this skill.

Other skills like teamwork will be very much appreciated, and this 
means doing your part so that as a whole you will be able to meet deadlines. 
In other words, no if’s and but’s. In our local culture, managers become 
really frustrated because just when they need more people, they 
disappear because of some fiesta, bunyag or some other reason. Again,
the opening up of international companies here means adhering to their rules,
and if  it means working the graveyard shift, we just have to work on it.

Others skills like being assertive, having integrity, commitment and 
emotional competence are also equally important. We must always 
remember we are now working with global companies and in a global environment,
it  will help all of us immensely if we hone up on these skills.

Second, I would like to suggest get a life. Meaning do something you 
really would like to do. When I first visited Siquijor more than ten years 
ago, I told myself I would go biking around the island because it really is a 
biking paradise. Well, it took me ten years but I finally did it this 
summer  my wife and I got bikes early this year and we started doing 
starter trips up to Valencia. It took us several attempts before we 
finally  made it all the way to Valencia and I can tell you the feeling is 
similar to those guys who just made it to Mt Everest. Last month, we decide to 
make a go at Siquijor. We almost gave up because we got left behind by the 
first 2 trips but finally made it to the 3rd trip. We started biking at 9am 
and I can tell you it was glorious  80K around the island, 10 hours on our 
bikes, 6 towns including stops to taste local cuisine and look at the sites 
and we had one great vacation, short though it was.

Of course, the nicest thing is also it’s a cheap way to see our country 
and I’m always reminded of that sign which says, “See the world before you 
leave it.”

You don’t have to go to Chicago to see the Shedd Aquarium to see the 
$47M wing which houses an exhibit called Wild Reef featuring our very own 
Apo Island because its just a few minutes boat ride from Malatapay. You 
don’t have to go to Bora or the Maldives to enjoy the best beaches because we 
have our very own sandbar at Campuyo. You don’t even have to go to 
Bohol to gaze at, in the words of my son, “those weird-shaped hills and that 
even weirder-looking monkey” which have made Bohol famous because we have 
our own share of endangered species in that mini zoo in Daro.

Lastly, carpe diem…that’s Latin for “seize the day”.

I think you’ve heard enough lectures in the last few years so I will 
end now. In closing, let me thank you again for inviting me and 
Congratulations, thank you all.