First Philippine Holdings pledges P100M to aid indigents displaced by COVID-19

MANILA, Philippines – Heeding the government’s call to take on a bigger role and take up a substantive part of the cost to address the health crisis, the Lopez-led First Philippine Holdings Corporation (FPH) has committed support for poor families whose work and means of livelihood were affected by measures to contain the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases climbed to 396 on Monday after the Department of Health (DOH) recorded 16 new cases.

President Duterte last week placed the entire Luzon under an “enhanced community quarantine” that requires millions of people to stay mostly at home in an attempt to contain the coronavirus.

Under the monthlong containment, most office work and mass public transportation on Luzon Island, which includes the capital, Manila, will be suspended, officials said. Public movement will be restricted and large gatherings banned except for medical and other emergencies.

As an initial step, FPH has pledged P100 million as seed fund that allowed the immediate launch of sister company ABS-CBN Corporation’s “Pantawid ng Pagibig” project, a campaign coordinated with local government units (LGUs) to provide indigents with food and other necessities in the midst of an enhanced community quarantine.

ABS-CBN’s Pantawid ng Pagibig project is raising from private companies and individuals funds, which the network is using to buy food items and other essentials for repacking and distribution to individual families and households in poor communities, whose residents are affected by quarantine restrictions.

FPH saw the need to help after monitoring reports about workers and small traders who worried about where to get money for their next meal following the implementation of enhanced community quarantine that cut them off from their work and means of livelihood.

FPH sees the ABS-CBN Pantawid campaign as a template, which can be replicated in other parts of the country where indigents are likewise unable to work or get needs due to quarantine restrictions to their movement.

Under the Pantawid campaign, ABS-CBN coordinates with the LGUs in distributing the food packages. By bringing food bags to the needy households, Pantawid at the same time helps stop the spread of Covid-19 because it encourages the indigents to stay home. These families need not go to their barangay centers or to ABS-CBN to get their needs.

FPH has subsidiaries with operations in other parts of the country. These include First Gen Corporation, the country’s largest clean and renewable energy producer, whose power plants are located in the provinces. ABS-CBN also has its own broadcast stations in the provinces.

Personnel of FPH subsidiaries in the provinces are ready to coordinate with LGUs in the provinces so the FPH subsidiaries can help poor families living both in host and nearby communities affected also by the virus.