"The private sector is taking the lead."
"The private sector is taking the lead."
We are on lockdown and there is no doubt about it. What started as a downplayed public health alert is now a Luzon-wide Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) that in less than a week’s time has swelled into a national crisis disrupting the lives of every inhabitant of the country.
Faced by the mortal threat of a global pandemic, with a virulence unseen since the Spanish flu of 1918 (history’s most devastating epidemic) that killed an estimated 50 million people in just one year, anxieties are high as we grapple to survive this contagion. As of this writing, the virus has infected over 244,500 and killed more than 10,000 with China, Italy and Iran being hit the heaviest.
The daily tweaks of ECQ guidelines reflect the wide spectrum of complexity of the crisis because of the interlinking dynamics of the world’s ecosystems. The United States has just recorded an all-time high of more than 2.5 million applications for unemployment benefits. The United Nations warns of global job losses that could hit above 25 million. Millions of daily wage-earners were stunned with a 48-hour warning to strictly follow social-distancing guidelines that effectively prevents them from leaving their dwellings to eke out a living for their dependents.
Quickly stepping up to the government’s call for private sector support are the biggest and most successful conglomerates in the country that, ironically, have been at the receiving end of the President’s damaging allegations and fiery verbal attacks that has caused billions of lost stock value even before the lockdown took effect.
The Ayala group set the bar high with a P2.4 billion COVID-19 response package consisting of P1.4 billion in rent condonation for its Ayala mall merchants, P600 million for continuing salaries of construction site workers shut down in various projects of the Ayala Malls group and Makati Development Corp, P270 million for Globe Telecoms vendor partners and retail store support staff, and P10 million in financial support for personnel of other Ayala companies.
Its employees will continue to receive salaries and financial support such as early release of mid-year bonuses. Employee loan payments have been postponed together with the release of special financial assistance programs with subsidized rates.
Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, chairman and chief executive officer of Ayala Corporation,and Ayala president Fernando Zobel de Ayala said in a joint statement, “In these most trying times, those significantly affected by the COVID-19 situation are the thousands of workers that will be affected by the enhanced community quarantine because their places of work have been closed. These include retail workers, construction workers, service providers, security agencies and employees of many similar businesses who are largely on a no-work-no-pay type of employment.”
Almost simultaneously, Manuel V. Pangilinan, Chairman of Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC), likewise committed continued pay and benefits, full payment of 13th month pay, no charging of work-from-home days to vacation or sick leave for all their employees in PLDT, Smart Communications and MPIC. Government hospitals will also get much needed support with an initial supply of 4,000 liters of alcohol and 500,000 vitamin tablets for frontline personnel.
Many companies have followed these models and are pro-actively mobilizing financial and human resources to roll out relief to help fill the basic needs of the lower income sectors that understandably could not afford this sudden loss of income. Remember that 77 percent of Filipinos do not even have bank accounts, which means most of the population have very low or even no savings to cope with emergencies.
Demonstrating solidarity as a sector, the 20 biggest business groups have banded together under a fund raising initiative called Project Ugnayan that will initially engage with Caritas Manila’s ongoing Project Damayan and ABS-CBN’s Pantawid ng Pag-ibig preject. This new intervention targets to distribute grocery vouchers to 1 million urban poor families in the greater Manila Area. Each recipient family will be able to redeem P1,000 worth of groceries from Puregold, Savemore and SM supermarket among others. The vouchers will be distributed door to door through the parishes led by the parish priests and in coordination with the Philippine National Police and the barangays. The project aims to reach the most economically vulnerable communities of the metropolis regardless of religion. The pilot run in the first four areas proved effective and will hopefully reach most of the 677 parishes in Metro Manila.
So far, funds raised have breached P1 billion mark from the generosity of 20 top business groups: Aboitiz Group, ABS-CBN/Lopez Group, Alliance Global, AY Foundation and RCBC, Ayala Corporation, Bench & Liwayway Group, Caritas Manila, Century Pacific, Concepcion Industrial Corp, DMCI, ICTSI, Jollibee. Leonio Group, Metrobank/GT Capital, Nutri-Asia, PDRF, PLDT/Metro Pacific, Puregold, San Miguel Corporation, and SM.
The private sector is now taking the lead in inspiring a newfound spirit of patriotism and compassion that seemed lost in a highly politicized, divisive and unstable atmosphere of anti-big business, populist rhetoric. When we eventually overcome this life-threatening battle, and we shall, new heroes will emerge and the lessons learned in this calamity would hopefully present an alternative breed of leaders for the next administration.