News

The First Philippine Holdings Corporation of the Lopez group will earmark ₱100 million as financial support to poor families being displaced in their work and livelihood due to the tragic hit of the novel coronavirus.

The Lopez firm said it pledged the ₱100 million as seed fund that enabled the launch of the “Pantawid ng Pag-ibig” project of its sister firm ABS-CBN Corporation, the country’s biggest television network.

The project, as emphasized, serves as a coordinated campaign with local government units (LGUs) “to provide indigents with food and other necessities in the midst of an enhanced community quarantine.”

The “Pantawid ng Pagibig” of ABS-CBN is a platform for fund raising from private companies and individuals, which the television network will then use “to buy food items and other essentials for repacking and distribution to individual families and households in poor communities,” primarily residents that are extremely hobbled by quarantine restrictions. “

FPH saw the need to help after monitoring reports about workers and small traders who are 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,” the Lopez firm stressed.

The holding firm of the conglomerate added that it 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.”

And in the television network’s initiative, it has been coordinating with the LGUs in distributing the food packages.

With that, the FPH noted that “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.”

The company emphasized “these families need not go to their barangay centers or to ABS-CBN to get their needs.”

According to FPH, the personnel from its subsidiaries in the provinces, like that of First Gen Corporation, “are ready to coordinate with LGUs”, so the poor families living both in their host and nearby communities can be served.

https://business.mb.com.ph/2020/03/23/lopez-group-pledges-%E2%82%B1100-m-covid-19-aid/