MANILA, Philippines — A fundraising initiative led by top business groups, the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) and Caritas Manila has pooled P1.62 billion in cash and in-kind donations for poor households in Metro Manila in the wake of the monthlong lockdown on Luzon.
“Project Ugnayan” aims to deliver P1,000 worth of grocery vouchers to poor families who have lost their livelihood because of the enhanced community quarantine meant to contain the new coronavirus disease.
The PDRF and its business partners also rolled out a separate initiative to raise over P100 million for much-needed medical equipment for hospitals across the metro.
“In the last 10 days, our partner Caritas Manila was able to distribute grocery vouchers to 218,119 families in economically vulnerable communities in Greater Metro Manila as of end-March, reaching some 1,090,595 individual residents. We hope to reach over 300,000 families in the coming days,” said Guillermo Luz, project spokesperson and chief resilience officer of PDRF.
Aside from Caritas’ Project Damayan and ABS-CBN’s Pantawid ng Pagibig, the project has tapped the Asian Development Bank and the government to expand its distribution reach.
The first wave of donor companies in the Ugnayan Project are (in alphabetical order): Aboitiz Group, ABSCBN/First Gen, Alliance Global Group & Megaworld, Ayala Corp./Zobel family, AY Foundation/RCBC, Bench/Suyen Corp, Century Pacific, Concepcion Industrial, DMCI Group of Companies, Gokongwei Group of Companies/Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc., ICTSI, Jollibee, Leonio Group, Mercury Drug Corp., Metrobank, NutriAsia, Oishi/Liwayway Marketing Group, PLDT/Metro Pacific Investments Corp., Puregold, Ramon S. Ang and family, SM/BDO, Sunlife of Canada, and Unilab.
Additional donors are: Alphaland Corp., Cebuana Lhullier, Chito Madrigal Foundation, Coca Cola, Glorious Commercial Exports Inc., Far Eastern University, First Life Financial Co., Focus Global, One Meralco Foundation, Penshoppe, PepsiCo/PepsiCo Foundation, Shang Properties Inc. and TAO Corp.
The PDRF, Zuellig Pharma, ABS-CBN, Metro Drug, and Go Negosyo also launched a separate fundraising called “Kaagapay: Protect our Healthcare Heroes project.”