THE Bacolod City Council requested the Office of the Building Official (OBO) to inspect facilities of business process outsourcing (BPO) companies operating in the city.
Councilor Renecito Novero said in a resolution the inspection is aimed to ensure that the BPO firms are complying with fire and other building safety standards.
Novero made the call after the December 23 blaze at NCCC Mall in Davao City that claimed the lives of 37 individuals, who are all employees of a BPO company.
“Survivors of this horrible tragedy recounted that they had difficulty in exiting the building because the fire exits were blocked and unpassable while the sprinkler system was not working,” the councilor said.
He added that to avoid a similar incident in Bacolod, all BPO companies in the city should be inspected.
Bacolod hosts major call center companies like Convergys, Teleperformance, Teletech, and PanAsiatic Solutions.
The Bacolod-Negros Federation for Information and Communication Technology (BNEFIT) will include in its 2018 planning agenda the safety and welfare of call center employees in their workplaces, said lawyer Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, executive director of BNEFIT.
Batapa-Sigue, a trustee of the National ICT Confederation of the Philippines, had earlier said that malls offering spaces to BPO locators must understand the nature of the call center business.
They should always take measures to protect the lives and welfare of the workers, she said, adding that BPO facilities should employ the highest degree of safety and emergency measures to prevent loss of lives.