7-Eleven tackles COVID-19 at community level

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine Seven Corp. (PSC), the exclusive licensor of 7-Eleven in the Philippines, has partnered with the Department of Health’s (DOH) BIDA Solusyon Campaign to take the fight against COVID-19 to the barangay level.

After its store personnel surveyed 38,000 individuals in 7,000 inner neighborhoods last August, 7-Eleven found out that only 60 percent of people in the vicinity of their stores wore masks, prompting the company to install a COVID-19 update poster in each of its 2,951 stores nationwide once barangay level data was made publicly available in mid-September.

“Our management philosophy is ‘show the right data in the right form to the right people at the right time, and they will make the right decisions.’ You can’t look over the shoulder of every store manager when you have 3,000 stores – you have to give him the freedom to manage his store, but at the same time let him know how he is doing, so he can either be left alone, recognized, or held accountable. We think the same is true with regard to managing COVID-19,” PSC president and CEO Victor Paterno said.

“We laud the DOH for making the barangay data available. The virus spreads from close contact within members of a community, so we believe reporting it at that level opens up a promising front in the war to contain the virus. We hope it will drive the behavioral changes needed to get the numbers down, and give communities the confidence that the problem can be managed. No need to be fearful – if together, we are careful,” Paterno said.