Toyota deploys 26 Filipino technicians to Saudi Arabia

TOYOTA Motor Philippines Corp. officials, led by their president Michinobu Sugata, attend a send-off ceremony for the Saudi Arabia-bound technicians at the company plant in Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

STA. ROSA, Laguna—Affirming the Filipino’s innate skills in automotive works and technologies, and global automotive giant Toyota’s efforts in developing local manpower know-how, 26 Filipinos have been deployed to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to work for one of the world’s largest Toyota distributors.

Among these 26 are Toyota Motor Philippines’ cream-of-the-crop trainee graduates. Alen Benedict B. Bautista, 21, an automotive education technology graduate from the Technological University of the Philippines-Manila, who hails from Baler Aurora Province, is considered one of Toyota Education Program’s “gems.”

He recently finished an 18-month training program conducted by TMP-customer service operations to qualified graduates of the Toyota Technical Education Training Program partner schools with the objective of training technicians for the Pro-Technician level and certifying them to global standards. The program includes extensive training on various Toyota Technician and Pro-Technician technical courses, and on-the-job training at 13 Luzon and Metro Manila dealers to be exposed to actual workshop operations.

Miguel C. Paulino, 25, who graduated from an automotive technology course at the Don Bosco Technical Institute in Makati, believes in a brighter future for himself after the training and after being given the opportunity by Toyota to be sent to the Middle East.

Alen and Miguel joined the first batch of Specialized Automotive Training Prgoram graduates sent recently to Abdul Latif Jameel Co. Inc (ALJ) in Saudi Arabia. They and the other SATP graduates will be deployed as automotive technicians in ALJ.

In a short send-off ceremony at the Sta. Rosa plant, TMP president Michinobu Sugata officially endorsed the 26 technicians to Lup Hang Wong, managing director of ALJ’s guest service operations. ALJ is the exclusive distributor of Toyota, Lexus and Daihatsu vehicles in Saudi Arabia, and is the seventh largest Toyota distributor worldwide.

Highly regarded in Saudi

SUGATA (second from left) receives a plaque from managing director of Lup Hang Wong, managing director of Abdul Latif Jameel Co. Inc (ALJ), as Toyota executives Dr. David Go (left) and Yuji Goto look on.

“In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and within the automotive service trade, Filipino technicians are equated with quality service skills,” said Wong in his speech during the ceremony. “They are, therefore, highly regarded and it is not unusual for Saudi customers to request that their vehicles be serviced or repaired by Filipino technicians.”

Sugata said: “Indeed, this program is beneficial to our Global Toyota Dealer Network and most of all, a great opportunity for our T-TEP graduates.”

He declared, “To all of you, your hard work and determination proved that you are worthy of this great opportunity to work in ALJ. Make your country proud!”

Bautista was asked to share his training experiences during the ceremonies. He said: “For the 18-month training that they let us (have) with the dealers, and the classroom training here in TMP, we learned a lot. We learned about the things that, though we already knew theoretically, we were given a chance to, as they will say in Japanese, ‘genchi genbutsu.’ We were able to see it with our own eyes, able to think on what we may do, and able to do what we thought of. We are also thankful (to TMP) for teaching us how to diagnose different types of cars and how we may fix them, and for making us understand the technology behind automobiles.”

Bautista said that the greatest thing that happened to his group in this program was to have been given the opportunity to carry out “our dreams of working and having a brighter future. This is our first step in fulfilling our dreams of providing for our family and giving them a comfortable life. And most of all, SATP taught us how to strive hard to attain our dreams. In return, we will do our best to give back all that you invested. We will not waste the opportunity this program has given us. We will apply what we have learned here in the job waiting for us at ALJ.”