MANILA, Philippines – The country’s top 20 business groups raised over P1.5 billion to feed urban poor residents in Metro Manila amid the lockdown triggered by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In a statement on Sunday, March 22, Project Ugnayan, which is a collaboration of business groups and the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation, said the funds would be used to distribute P1,000 gift certificates to over one million households affected by the lockdown.

“In compliance with social distancing guidelines, gift certificates delivered door-to-door will be redeemable for food items from accessible groceries and supermarkets,” the group said.

They tapped Caritas Manila’s Project Damayan and ABS-CBN’s Pantawid ng Pag-ibig for the door-to-door distribution of the grocery vouchers.

Distribution is ongoing in 4 pilot areas and will scale up in cooperation with project partners.

The business groups supporting Project Ugnayan are:

• Aboitiz Group
• ABS-CBN/Lopez Group
• Alliance Global/Megaworld
• AY Foundation and RCBC
• Ayala Corporation
• Caritas Manila
• Century Pacific
• Concepcion Industrial Corporation
• DM Consunji Incorporated
• ICTSI
• Jollibee
• Leonio Group
• Metrobank/GT Capital
• Nutri-Asia
• Oishi/Liwayway Marketing Group PDRF
• PLDT/Metro Pacific Investments Corporation
• Puregold
• San Miguel Corporation
• SM/BDO
• Suyen Corporation

There are ongoing talks with more companies interested in contributing resources to expand the project. – Rappler.com