Real Returns

Meals at Manila's Malacañang palace are a modest affair. at a recent lunch, the Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and some guests from TIME were fed scrambled eggs, bacon, burgers and fries. It was a menu with a message—that Arroyo is scrupulously guarding the nation's scant resources. It's easy to see why her kitchen is engaged in this game of culinary p.r. Despite a solid growth rate of around 5%, the economy is a mess, hobbled by 11% unemployment, 8% inflation, and a crushing $70 billion in national debt. Adding to the perception that the Philippines might come apart at the seams are allegations that Arroyo rigged last year's presidential election and persistent rumors of coup plots. The President, who has a Ph.D. in economics, knows she needs faster economic growth and more foreign investment to help dig the country out of its fiscal hole, but what sane foreign investor would risk money in a country that seems perennially on the verge of political and financial chaos?

Well, me, for one. A few months ago, I bought a stake in a small, private company that operates a call center in downtown Manila. Call centers, which do everything from handling customer-service inquiries to taking purchase orders, are a rare success story in the Philippines. "It's a sunrise industry," Arroyo told me, delighted by the chance to discuss a positive trend. "Four years ago, it was just beginning here. Today, it's employing about 70,000 young people and hiring thousands more each month. I think the sky is the limit."

Later that day, I headed over to the call center, donned a headset and listened in until 1:30 a.m. on conversations between some of the company's 525 telephone "agents" and their customers in the U.S. It was a wonderfully surreal experience. The agents—all college graduates, mostly in their early 20s—had undergone a two-week "accent neutralization" program designed by a speech pathologist whose techniques were originally developed to help stroke victims. The results were startling, with Filipinos spouting cheery Americanisms like "Alrightee," "You have a wonderful day," and "How y'all doing today?" Most spoke with an uncanny approximation of an Indiana accent.

What was most striking, though, was their manner—unfailingly polite, patient and eager to help. This, I was told, is the Philippines' unique strength in outsourcing. Filipinos are not famed for their brilliance at telemarketing, which requires pushiness, but they are prized when it comes to the gentler art of customer service. The nation's other outsourcing edge is more basic: it has a large population of English speakers who will work for relatively meager salaries. A top agent in Manila might be paid $2.65 an hour, perhaps a quarter of what someone in a call center in the U.S. might earn. As a result, it can be a highly profitable business.

But there is another, less tangible return on investment here. At the risk of sounding sentimental, this is the only investment I've ever owned that has actually made me happy, regardless of whether it pays off financially. When I first visited the company last fall, I sat in on a grammar class and discovered what a godsend these call-center jobs are to new recruits. Asked to complete a sentence beginning "I wish ... ," a woman in her 20s cried as she confided that what she wished for most of all was to see her mother, who had worked abroad for the past two decades to support her children. Another recruit said he had just quit a seminary to support his sister because she was pregnant and her husband had fled. He explained: "Only this company gave me a break." In a country where there is so little opportunity that some 7 million Filipinos have gone overseas to work, call centers provide a crucial lifeline.

The night after I met with Arroyo, I had dinner in Manila with the firm's co-founder, a Westerner who has done business in the Philippines for 30 years and who personally pays for the education of 21 local kids. I was taken aback by how emotional he was about what he called the "moral obligation to invest" in the country. "These people are trying to find a way out," he said. "You just have to give them the chance. They've given up on the idea of something changing at the top. But money gives them hope for the future. It gives them freedom from impoverishment."

A $240-a-month job in a call center may not be everyone's idea of the path to salvation. But in the Philippines, it's a start.