MANILA, Philippines — Trade and Industry Secretary Gregory L. Domingo was alarmed by the anti-outsourcing sentiment in the Obama administration even as he vowed to mount a strong lobby in the US Congress against a proposed bill that seeks to ban outsourcing and offshoring activities of American companies of their non-core functions to other countries including the Philippines.

“We are very concerned about it and we will lobby in the US Congress primarily through our embassy led by Ambassador Jose Cuisia Jr. and also through the Filipino communities in the US,” Domingo said.

Domingo noted that this anti-outsourcing sentiment also cropped up during the 2004 and 2008 US elections.

The outsourcing sector has proven to be the country’s sunniest posting strong growth despite an already high base.

In 2011, the country’s revenue from the outsourcing sector reached $9 billion or 20 percent higher than 2010 level. It has provided almost half a million jobs to people working in financial services, human resources, IT and software development, management services, engineering design, animation and other sectors.

The proposed bill under US House Bill 3596 otherwise known as the Call Center and Consumers Protection bill seeks to require call center operators who answer calls to identify their location, giving US callers the option of choosing a local operator.

The bill proposes to punish companies that have call centers overseas by making them ineligible for grants and guaranteed loans from the federal government.

It also proposes a $10,000 dollar a day penalty on US call centers that fail to report its relocation to an offshore location within 60 days to the Labor Department.

American companies will also be required to inform the US labor department 120 days in advance regarding their plans to transfer operations elsewhere.

The bill also seeks to ban American call centers operating outside the United States from seeking federal grants and loans for five years.

The Philippines has overtaken India as the world’s top destination for outsourcing services, according to a report by IBM’s Global Locations Trend.

Earlier, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said they were assessing the impact of the proposed US law.

Baldoz said she would ask Labor Attaché Luzviminda Padilla in Washington to assess the impact of the Call Center and Consumers Protection bill that might have severe repercussions on the country’s booming business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.

“If there’s going to be a slowdown then of course that would affect us because there are many US outsourcing companies here in the Philippines,” she said.(BCM)