“Project Ugnayan,” a fundraising initiative led by top business groups in cooperation with the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation and Caritas Manila, announced that it has reached pledged donations totaling P1.62 billion in cash and in kind for individuals affected by the enhanced community quarantine in Metro Manila.
“We are absolutely grateful by the overwhelming response of the private conglomerates in extending their support to those who need help the most. This has enabled us to raise our initial target of helping 1 million to 1.5 million families and make a difference in the lives of some 7.5 million individual residents that have been economically displaced by the ongoing enhanced community quarantine in greater Metro Manila. The Project aims to deliver P1,000 worth of grocery vouchers to these families,” said Guillermo M. Luz, project spokesperson and chief resilience officer of PDRF.
“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,” Luz added.
The Caritas Manila network includes the Dioceses of Manila, Antipolo (Rizal), Cubao, Imus (Cavite), Caloocan, Malolos (Bulacan), Novaliches, Paranaque, Pasig, and San Pablo (Laguna) covering 628 parishes.
Aside from the project’s first two channels – Caritas’ Project Damayan and ABS-CBN’s Pantawid ng Pagibig – Project Ugnayan 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: Aboitiz Group, ABS-CBN/First Gen, Alliance Global Group and Megaworld, Ayala Corp. and Zobel family, AY Foundation and RCBC, Bench and Suyen Corp., Century Pacific, Concepcion Industrial, DMCI Group of Companies, Gokongwei Group of Companies and Robinsons Retail Holdings, ICTSI, Jollibee, Leonio Group, Mercury Drug Corp., Metrobank, Nutri-Asia, Oishi and Liwayway Marketing Group, PLDT and Metro Pacific Investments Corp., Puregold, Ramon S. Ang and family, SM and BDO, Sunlife of Canada, and Unilab.
