Alleba Politics

Erwin Oliva of Inq7.net has written an article about the complaint of a United Kingdom-based firm, represented by some Paul Bowers, that they have been ripped off by a Philippine-based outsourcing company called “Wicked Innovations.” He wrote the article based on his correspondence with Bowers. What he didn’t write was that Bowers was simply dissatisfied with the quality of work and Bowers and Wicked Innovations has already settled the matter.

It is really unfortunate for the Philippine outsourcing industry that Oliva had written such article without even bothering to think of its possible consequences on the industry. Oliva even snarkily implied at the end of his article that it is ironic that Wicked Innovations explains in its website why it is good to outsource in the Philippines. Oliva seems to believe that it is not good to outsource in the Philippines because of this SINGLE incident involving Bowers and Wicked Innovations.

Some blogs, such as Alleba and the PinoyTech Blog, have already talked about the issue, while defending the Philippine outsourcing industry.

In my opinion, Oliva’s article is symptomatic of two problems we have in this country. One is crab mentality. We are prone to believing negative stories about our countrymen and attribute it to their being Filipino. When, in reality, it’s something that happens every day, anywhere. Case in point: Andrew of Alleba had a similar experience only he was not dealing with a local outsourcing company. Oliva implied that the problem Bowers had was because he was dealing with a Philippine-based company, rather than pointing out that getting tipped-off is a problem in the entire outsourcing industry.

Moreover, it also illustrates how some journalists pounce on a topic and make it “controversial,” without really knowing a lot about the issue. Oliva didn’t even bother to follow-up and clear things up after the issue has been settled between Bowers and Wicked Innovations. Probably, he’s too lazy to do so, or as I suspect, it is not interesting or controversial enough for him to write about.

Oliva, in my opinion, created the problem for the Philippines’ outsourcing industry. It was not Wicked Innovations who created a bad name for outsourcing in the Philippines. Rather, it is Oliva’s poor journalism skills and apparent crab mentality which put our outsourcing industry in a bad light.

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