KAY CALPO LUGTU
Just recently, Quezon City Representative Alfred Vargas filed House Bill 5728, “An Act Ensuring the Rights, Welfare and Safety of the Workers in the IT-BPO industry in the Philippines,” aiming to enhance the working conditions and addressing professional development and career growth of this 1.2 million strong workforce. For an industry to be present more than a decade and a half here in the country, this is a welcome respite. There, indeed, should be legislation on how we protect the workforce in a sector that contributed $24.5 billion in revenue as of 2017, up by almost 10 percent from 2016, as reported by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).