"This is what we have been working for — more opportunities, more jobs, and more reasons for our people to stay and build their future here in our city." That was Tuguegarao City Mayor Maila Ting-Que on September 23, as Alorica opened a 44,000-square-foot customer experience facility in her city — the first large-scale business process outsourcing (BPO) operation ever to set up in Cagayan Valley.
What the new site is
The Tuguegarao facility opens with more than 300 production seats and will initially support a leading healthcare client, according to Alorica's announcement. The company plans to fill hundreds of roles at the site across customer experience, digital services, operations support, and leadership functions.
It is Alorica's 23rd location in the Philippines, joining sites across Metro Manila, Pampanga, Batangas, Cebu, Davao, and Ilocos Norte — but the first in Region 2, a region that until now had no established large-scale BPO employer. Globally, Alorica employs more than 100,000 people across 16 countries.
"Cagayan represents one of the most promising regions in our country," said Sarah Machan-Silva, president of Alorica Philippines. Bong Borja, the company's chief strategy officer and chairman of Alorica Philippines, added that "the Philippines plays a critical role in Alorica's global strategy and ongoing success."
Part of a 25,000-hire push
The Tuguegarao opening is one piece of a much larger commitment: Alorica plans to hire approximately 25,000 employees across the Philippines during this year's ramp season — the industry's peak hiring period ahead of year-end demand. Outsource Accelerator, which covered the opening, notes the site marks the outsourcing sector's continued expansion beyond its established delivery hubs.
The investment did not land in Tuguegarao by accident. The city government worked with the Department of Information and Communications Technology's ICT Industry Development Bureau to attract BPO investment outside the usual hubs, with bureau officials Magdalena Gomez and Darlene Seguritan taking part in the facility discussions alongside Alorica's site-selection team.
Why BPOs are moving past Metro Manila
The IT-BPM industry has spent years concentrated in Metro Manila, Cebu, and Davao, and those labor markets have tightened as the sector has grown. Openings like Tuguegarao's follow the industry's logic of going where untapped talent lives — Alorica's existing Ilocos Norte site was an earlier step in the same northern Luzon direction, and the sector's countryside expansion has drawn other investors too, from ISON Group's $375-million (around ₱23.5 billion) commitment spanning towers, telehealth, and BPO to Indian firms pledging 2,000 Philippine jobs.
For Region 2, the stakes are concrete. A large-scale employer anchored on a healthcare account gives graduates in Cagayan Valley a reason not to migrate to Manila for work — exactly the outcome Mayor Ting-Que described. "More opportunities to come for Tuguegarao," she said. "One step at a time, but we keep moving forward."
What happens next
Alorica has not disclosed a headcount target for the Tuguegarao site beyond "hundreds" of roles, and the 300-plus production seats suggest the initial phase is deliberately measured. The clearer signal is the nationwide number: 25,000 hires in a single ramp season is one of the larger hiring commitments announced by any Philippine BPO employer this year, and where those seats land — established hubs or newer sites like Tuguegarao — will show how far the industry's provincial shift has actually gone.
