They will also get involved in providing services by engaging in business-process outsourcing.  In fact the proposed e-commerce center was designed for this purpose.  While the ground floor will be for the e-Trading network, the upper floors will house the community’s BPO facilities for data encoding, call center, animation, and AutoCADD.  The APEC Digital Opportunity Program will provide the clients for the BPO center.

            The e-Trading Network will adopt a very practical marketing approach – word of mouth. Marketing their products won’t really be a problem and with close to 850,000 people involved in the program, who needs a marketing strategy?

            Lay people, some from the business sector, will be running the network much like a private enterprise with profits as the bottom line while the religious will be providing spiritual guidance and evangelization to ensure that the people will not lose track of the community’s mission.

How e-Trading Works

            It is not easy to become part of the e-Trading Network.  First, a parish has to have an organized Basic Ecclesial Community (BEC); second, they have to have a set of values; third, they have to be a strategic partner of the Risen Christ Parish.  Only when these conditions are met could a community become part of the network.

            Since trading will be conducted over the Internet using open-source software that would be recommended by the Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT), members of the e-Trading Network will sign a memorandum of agreement after which they will be given passwords to avail of the services.

            The BECs at the Parish of the Risen Christ, besides identifying out-of-school youths who were and will be sent to the e-learning programs, have also identified 1,000 families who will initially be part of the e-Trading Network.  An “order taker” is assigned to survey the needs of the member-families.  The trading center will then post the orders, the trading partners will send the orders, and finally the center will distribute them to the families.  This is already in place at the parish, however order taking is done manually and the use of technology for placing orders is limited to text messages and e-mails.  Once the e-commerce center is completed, things will be done online and order takers will no longer be using pen and paper for their survey but will be using PDAs instead.

            When the online system is up and running, members will be given an e-card loaded with monetary value, very much like a Time Zone card, that will be swiped every time a purchase is made.

            The e-Trading Network alone will integrate two million people via the Internet – members and trading partners from Manila, Bulacan, Pampanga, Bataan, and Guimba.

            The BPO Center, on the other hand, will generate employment for the BEC members who are not involved with the manufacture of goods.  With the combined call center seats and other outsourced services, the e-commerce center can easily generate 2000 jobs not counting other people who will benefit from these jobs like the pedicab drivers, store owners, etc.

            The e-commerce center will be run like a private enterprise but with distinct features.  Employees will not be paid wages but will earn from sales and markups.  At the moment volunteers at the trading center are earning very little but are nevertheless contented with what they get.  Sacrifice, they tell me.

            Profits from sales minus the markup for order takers will be given back to members in the form of rebates.  Pure profits, which Fr. Ben projects to be close to a million pesos annually when the project is in full swing, will be used for evangelization.

            Unless you get the idea that the e-Trading Network are exclusive fro Catholics, it’s not.  In fact, it is the perfect example of an inter-faith community-based program.  When I visited the trading center, I was introduced to volunteers who were non-Catholics.  One was a born-again Christian and another a Presbyterian.

            Everything that’s been discussed in this series is already in place except for the edifice.  It will only be a matter of time before the world will finally see the first ever digital community in what used to be Metro Manila’s garbage dump.  And while the rest of the country is engaged in politics, there’s this community engaged in transforming their lives and making a difference.

            We believe in our hearts that God is behind all these progress in Smokey Mountain but prayers are still in order to further strengthen the community and its pastor so that eventually, we can witness the church, the government, and the private sector hand-in-hand aided by technology achieving the next-to-impossible.

            Is there anything too marvelous for the Lord to do? (Gen.18:14).