Indians are better than Filipinos in English?

One evening a couple of years ago, the short exchange took place between my cousin, who worked for a call center, and a customer. And it went roughly this way:

My Cousin: (name of company). This is (my cousin's name) speaking. How may I help you?

Customer: Err. Are you from India or something?

My Cousin: No sir. I'm from the Philippines sir.

Customer: Oh thank God!

Then the customer proceeded to tell him the hard time he had talking with the Indian customer service representative. In fact, my cousin told me how many transactions are referred to the Philippines from their Indian counterparts because of difficulties encountered by US clients with spoken Indian English.

They may have been colonized by the Brits, but I think English didn't rub off quite well.

But a contrary opinion is held by the current officer-in-charge of the National Economic and Development Authority, Augusto B. Santos. He expains that when it comes to spoken English, Indians are better than Filipinos because they were colonized by the Brits and Spain got us. Where the heck did he get that idea? And did he miss the American occupation in history class?

Perhaps he should take a few clues from my cousin who used to work for a call center.