BUSINESS PROCESS outsourcing firm Everise is purchasing more than 6,000 vaccine doses for its employees in the Philippines, who number more than 3,000. “Our vaccination program will start as soon as the vaccines are delivered,” said Chief People Officer Sheena Ponnappan, who declined to specify which brands recommended by the Philippine government were procured by Everise.
The company’s Experience Center in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, will serve as the vaccination site. It aims to vaccinate at least 200 staff members a day.
San Miguel Corporation (SMC), for its part, is spending close to a billion pesos for a program to vaccinate all its 70,000 employees. Under the conglomerate’s “Ligtas Lahat” task force in coordination of government agencies, 7,260 of its essential workers from across the National Capital Region (NCR), Davao, Laguna, and Pampanga have received their first COVID vaccine doses. Of these, 2,540 from outside NCR were vaccinated from July 2 to 8.
SMC employees based in Bulacan and Cavite are scheduled to get their jabs this week.
In June, SMC transformed its 5,013 square meter sports complex in Pasig City into a vaccination site for its NCR-based employees. The SMC Sports Complex and Mandaluyong City’s La Salle Green Hills are the main sites for the company’s vaccination program, and can accommodate 800 and 1,000 employees per day, respectively. The target is to operate 16 sites nationwide once the vaccines arrive.
The company has also been hiring and deploying medical professionals to various vaccination sites to boost the inoculation programs of local government units (LGUs).
“Basically, what we’ve been doing is we mobilize our workers, assemble them together, and use our own resources, so that they can be vaccinated through our LGUs. This way, we can support the LGU’s vaccination targets, get more people back to work safely, and at the same time divert thousands away from vaccination sites to reduce crowding,” SMC President Ramon S. Ang said in a press statement.
Other companies that have kick-started their employee vaccination drives last week are property developers Cebu Landmasters, Inc. and Megaworld Corp., management and investment company First Philippine Holdings Corporation (FPH), as well as the MVP Group of Companies.
Cebu Landmasters, Inc. said it got over 10,000 Moderna jabs and partnered with AC Health and Velez Medical to administer them. FPH similarly tapped AC Health, as well as Reliance United, as third-party vaccine administration providers to handle the vaccination in its headquarters and in its subsidiaries’ offices and sites.
FPH, which invests in the energy sector through its subsidiaries, started inoculating its employees in July 6 at the First Gen Clean Energy Complex in Batangas City. It earlier procured the AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines through multi-party agreements with the vaccine manufacturers in partnership with the Philippine government.
Others that have started inoculating their workforce are Megaworld Corp., which completed the vaccination of 95% (or 2,300 out of a total of 2,430) of its office-based employees, and the MVP Group of Companies, which initiated its inoculation drive on July 7.
Led by the MVP Group Vaccine Task Force, the first tranche of company-procured Moderna doses were administered to the conglomerate’s first batch of employees at Meralco Compound in Pasig City. Other vaccination facilities that will be activated this week are PLDT Sta. Ana in the City of Manila, Smart Tower in Makati City, Maynilad Balara in Quezon City, and NLEX Sta Rita in Bulacan.
The National Government kicked off the mass vaccination of economic frontliners under the A4 priority group at the SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City in June 7. Among those vaccinated were delivery service riders, media personalities, food service crew, and teaching professionals.
More than 3.44 billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide as of July 12, equal to 45 doses for every 100 people, according to Our World in Data. According to its vaccination tracker, 8.81% of the Philippine population has received at least one vaccine dose. — P. B. Mirasol
