Big business to raise P1.5 billion for COVID-hit urban poor

Top business groups have pooled resources to raise P1.5 billion to fund grocery vouchers for urban poor residents in Metro Manila to help them cope with the Luzon-wide quarantine that was imposed in light of coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19.

Companies supporting the Project Ugnayan initiative are the Aboitiz Group, ABS-CBN and the Lopez Group, Alliance Global, AY Foundation and RCBC, Ayala Corp., Caritas Manila, Century Pacific, Concepcion Industrial Corp., DMCI, Gokongwei Group of Companies, Enrique Razon-led International Container Terminal Services Inc., Jollibee Foods Corp., Leonio Group, Mercury Drug, GT Capital, Nutri-Asia, Liwayway Marketing Group, the MVP Group, Puregold, San Miguel Corp., the SM Group, Sunlife of Canada and Suyen Corp.

Project Ugnayan targets to distribute P1,000 gift certificates to over one million households in the poor communities of the greater Manila area.

“This is a collaboration with business groups in cooperation with the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) to raise funds in support of ongoing initiatives to help poor families that were economically displaced by the ongoing Enhanced Community Quarantine in Metro Manila,” it said in a  statement.

The implementation will comply with social distancing guidelines, the group also said.

“Gift certificates delivered door to door will be redeemable for food items from accessible groceries and supermarkets,” it said.

The door-to-door distribution would be in coordination with other groups such as Caritas Manila’s Project Damayan and ABS CBN’s Pantawid ng Pag-ibig program.

Distribution is ongoing in four pilot areas and will scale-up in cooperation with project partners, the group said. 

Father Anton Pascual, executive director of Caritas Manila said, “We are grateful for the support of the business community and hope that this initiative will inspire more acts of kindness in this time of crisis. Now is the time for our communities to help as one.”

“The national health crisis that confronts us is instructive of the need to adopt a holistic perspective that enjoins every sector of society to partake in mitigating the adverse effects of this health debacle. We believe that the current national emergency needs pro-active and harmonized intervention of all sectors of society. An inclusive approach that taps all available resources and talents,” the group also said.

Moving forward, Project Ugnayan is targeting to get more support from more companies.

There are ongoing talks with more companies who have signified their intention to contribute more resources to expand the reach of this project, the group said.