MAP Insights

I was born in the 1960s, and it would be an under-statement to say that the world has undergone a massive change.  We grew up without cell phones, video games, personal computers, email, chat and internet.  I remembered in the early 1980s, after graduating high school, some of our classmates went to Manila to study. We wanted to stay in touch, but there was still no email and cellphones, so we stayed in touch by writing letters.  We handwrote letters and mail them, and it would take a week to reach Manila.   After they received it, they would take a week or two to write back and it would take another week after they mail for us to receive it.  So waiting and getting a reply around a month was normal.

 

Today’s generation do not have that patience.  They are used that when they text or chat, they should get a reply within a minute.  If after a few minutes, they don’t get one, they call and asked why they were not replied.  And this is true whether the person is in Manila or halfway around the world.

 

When I was in college, my dream was to own a bookstore, and most of my allowances went to buying records and books.  Now bookstores are gone, and no musician looks forward to making or selling records anymore.  But the more things changed, some things stay the same.  The artist a hundred years ago make money by doing concerts.  Apparently today, most musicians now make money not by making records, but by doing live concerts.

 

Today, there is another massive development that threatens millions of jobs – AI or artificial intelligence.   A famous venture capitalist, Vinod Khosla, even ventured that most office jobs might be gone in five years.  Receptionists or telephone operators are no longer required.  People in tech support can be wholesale replaced as machines answer the calls and converse like humans or reply to emails.   Computers can now make powerpoints, and letters, and even dissertations.   They can even draft legal contracts on the fly.  They can analyze businesses and review documents.  They can even make pictures or videos without any actors necessary.

 

This is particularly threatening to our country, because unlike most of our Asian neighbors, like China, Vietnam, or Thailand, who have become progressive by housing factories, and producing machines, cars, clothes, food, and consumer products sold all over the world.  The Philippines has been left behind in manufacturing, but attracted a different kind of investment – BPO or business process outsourcing.  As of end 2025, it was reported that over US$35 Billion and close to 2 million jobs were generated by these.  The gleaming high rises in Cebu IT Park, and Bonifacio Global City light up at night and is testament that we have been successful in this industry.

 

The next few years will be crucial to the Philippines.  When the industrial revolution hit England, there were a few hundred people involved in making clothes.  Most of them were afraid to lose their jobs due to industrialization.  After two hundred years, the ability to make clothes is now largely automated, and faster by over a hundred times.  But people went from owning less than 10 pieces of clothes in their lifetime to buying 10 at a time.  Millions of people are now employed in the industry.  If we know how to adjust, our BPO could massively grow, or a million would be out of the job.

 

Another example can be the banking industry.  A hundred years ago, everything was manual and a bank with a few hundred employees and a handful of branches was already considered big and complex to manage.  Then   innovations came –   computers, networks, internet, electronic banking, money counters.  Suddenly it took one person to count a few million of banknotes, instead of several people and do it much more accurately.  Suddenly, instead of taking days to send money to another branch, or transfer your money, it took now seconds.  But the same development that fund the massive productivity made more people reliant on banking, and banks grow to thousands of branches all over the world, and millions more become employed.  Would AI do the same?

 

Another industry is the restaurant industry.  60 years ago, a trip to the restaurant would mean that you would order, and they would cook.  A restaurant with 20 workers would serve a hundred patrons, and most would stay an hour to enjoy the dinner.  Now a similar size fast-food, with the same number of attendants, could serve over a thousand or two of meals, and many would be served immediately at the counter upon order, and finish and go out in 15 minutes.

 

What will AI have in store for us?  Will it mean that there are enough of them that we can all now enjoy great living standards and earn even more even if we get to work only 3 days a week?  Or will there be millions unemployed?  It really depends on how we retrain and adjust our way of working and our industries.  It can massively push up to developed status, or it can make us whittle down to even lower depths.

 

(This article reflects the personal opinion of the author and does not reflect the official stand of the Management Association of the Philippines or MAP. The author is a member of the MAP. He is President and CEO of Ng Khai Development Corporation, an ICT systems integrator in the southern Philippines. He also heads various companies in BPO providing service to Japanese and American companies, network cabling, logistics and cold storage warehousing. Feedback at <map@map.org.ph> and <wilson@ngkhai.com>).