Lipa City LGU, LIMA Land partner for vaccination hub
The Lipa City government is teaming up with LIMA Land, Inc. to set up a vaccination hub within LIMA Estate’s premier Central Business District, specifically at The Outlets at Lipa, to further accelerate vaccine rollout in the city.
The vaccination hub in LIMA’s CBD at The Outlets at Lipa is estimated to open within the third quarter of 2021.
‘The Outlets at Lipa’ is one of Luzon’s largest outlet shopping destinations located within the Central Business District of LIMA Estate in Lipa-Malvar, Batangas. LIMA Estate is a 794-hectare Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) — registered industrial-anchored development that is home to 130 locators and their 60,000 employees, and 2,500 households. It also has a 138-room 4-star hotel development and 167 shops located in its mall establishments.
Ateneo de Manila, BagoSphere partner for disadvantaged youth
Ateneo de Manila University, through Ateneo Center for Educational Development (ACED), and BagoSphere have signed an agreement to train and equip disadvantaged, out-of-school, and unemployed youth on English, interview, call center, and human skills to build their confidence, enhance their social skills, and make them competent and job-ready.
Ateneo Center for Educational Development (ACED) is at the forefront of the Ateneo de Manila University’s efforts to provide systematic, high impact, and visible programs of support for public school systems in the Philippines through the Department of Education, Local Government Units, and other partners.
BagoSphere is an award-winning workforce training company based in the Philippines and in Singapore, focused on human skills and is supported by elea Foundation for Ethics in Globalization, Rising Tide Foundation, Fossil Foundation, Frontier Innovators, xChange, and Kickstart Ventures, a subsidiary of Globe Telecom.
For the past 8 years, BagoSphere has been helping disadvantaged Filipino youth build interpersonal skills and mindsets to enter the workforce, starting with the BPO and microfinance industries. BagoSphere has trained over 5,000 people, across 8 cities and 3 job training centers.
The Career Prep Program, which has gone online, is a one-month, intensive training program which features a highly structured and guided end-to-end learning journey to a job, personalized interview practice and feedback with trainers, support by industry experts, and an online community for learning. Students receive a certificate of completion from Ateneo and BagoSphere, and they are directly linked with BPO partners after graduation.
The program is currently funded by scholarships and caters to alumni and students from ACED’s network of schools in Quezon City, PHINMA school in Iloilo (University of Iloilo), and beneficiaries of Tondo Community Initiative, and will be open to the general public when more classes are available.
SWAT Mobility eyes manufacturing sector
SWAT Mobility, a Singapore-based smart mobility solution company that handles employee transportation, said it is looking at the manufacturing sector to grow its business in the Philippines.
Jarrold Ong, SWAT Mobility co-founder, said these sectors have huge logistics requirements that should be done efficiently, safely, and conveniently.
“Manufacturing companies have always required transportation, even before the pandemic, because of the number of people that goes in and out of the facility, and transporting people has to be done efficiently because delays can mean production losses for the companies,” he said.
“Our technology allows us to see who are in the vehicles at any given time which makes it easier for us to track the fleet and the passengers,” Ong said.
“Once our clients have experienced how we do things, it is difficult to go back to the old manual planning of routes which are ultimately more costly, more time consuming, and more inefficient,” he said.
Ong said SWAT Mobility’s level of efficiency in planning routes, fleet management, and tracking is immensely difficult to achieve if done manually.
Kwik.insure, Starr Insurance tie up
Kwik.insure, the Philippines’ largest online insurance marketplace, has partnered with Starr Insurance Philippines to serve the insurance needs of Filipinos abroad.
Through the strategic partnership, overseas Filipinos can now purchase insurance policies for themselves or provide insurance for their loved ones and vehicles back home.
Kwik.insure noted a significant traffic coming from Filipinos abroad since the platform was launched in March. Typically, OFWs need to come home to the Philippines before they can avail of insurance policies. With the partnership, OFWs may avail a variety of health, accident, Covid-19 and vehicle insurance policies being offered by Starr Insurance Philippines.
Starr Hospital Protect provides a daily hospital income should the OFW or their loved one be hospitalized as a result of suffering from a sickness or an accident, and Starr Critical Protect provides a lump sum cash benefit upon diagnosis of any of the 51 Critical Illnesses.
Pacific Cross bags Golden Arrow Award
Pacific Cross Insurance Inc. (PCII) recently received its third consecutive Asean Corporate Governance Scorecard (ACGS) Golden Arrow award from the Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD) for its performance in 2020.
The ACGS is an evaluation tool used in six participating countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. This includes Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.
The Golden Arrow is awarded to esteemed companies, including insurance companies that achieved the scores of at least 80 points in the ACGS Assessment. There are five levels of performance with corresponding scores that will identify the number of golden arrows.
PCII received ACGS credit scores of above 80 points in both 2018 and 2019. For 2020, it garnered a score of 91.54. The scorecard consists of questions covering the company’s governance, most notably its efforts for shareholder equity and rights as well as disclosure and transparency.
With its triple Golden Arrow wins, PCII joins the growing ranks of top performing companies in the Philippines operating under the ASEAN’s good governance business model.
PayMaya Checkout allows for safer transactions
PayMaya, in collaboration with the Development Bank of the Philippines, has equipped the city of Antipolo with PayMaya Checkout, allowing citizens to pay for various local government fees on its website using any Visa, Mastercard, or JCB credit, debit, and prepaid card, PayMaya and other e-wallets.
PayMaya has also enabled over 9,500 MSME touchpoints in Antipolo with digital payment solutions. Citizens can now enjoy contactless payments at the City Mall and public market. They can also pay for tricycle rides at several routes served by the Antipolo Tricycle Operators’ and Drivers’ Association (TODA) using PayMaya QR. They can also go to the nearest Smart Padala by PayMaya to add money to their PayMaya account or cash out their funds.
Building Antipolo’s cashless ecosystem is part of PayMaya’s LGUs Embracing and Accelerating Digitalization (LEAD) program, which aims to accelerate the digital transformation of the government from the ground up by enabling citizens to transact through online and mobile channels.
Singlife PH’s Cash for Income Loss
Mobile-first life insurer, Singlife Philippines continues to deliver no-fuss protection with the launch of Cash for Income Loss. Available on GCash, it safeguards customers and their families from unexpected loss of income due to disability or death of an income earner.
Cash for Income Loss can replace up to 100 percent of that income for 36 months for only a few hundred pesos per year. A two-month cash bonus is also given on the 36th policy month.
Also available is Cash for Income Loss (Accidents), an accidents-only plan. A smart alternative for those with tighter budgets or whose age or medical status is ineligible for the full version.
Cash for Income Loss is available via GInsure on the GCash app.
CCLEX photo tilt winners
A flash of lightning from the skies and a burst of fireworks fired from the earth marked the two top prize winners in the recently concluded CCLEX Social Media Photo Contest held recently in Cebu City.
The photographic tilt has captured various images of the Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway (CCLEX) toll bridge showing that the piece of transport infrastructure is truly an engineering marvel, said Cebu-Cordova Link Expressway Corp. (CCLEC).
The winning photos were among a total of 297 entries under two categories: the General Entry Category received 108 entries taken from April 15 to 30, while the Switch-On Category received 189 entries taken on April 15 and 16.
The first prize winner was chosen among 108 entries in the contest’s general entry category and was taken by photographer Nestor Vince II A. Nardo
The first prize winner in the switch on category, which had 189 entries was taken by Francis Gonzaga.
CCLEX is a P30-billion toll bridge that will link mainland Cebu from the South Road Properties in Cebu City to Mactan island through the Municipality of Cordova.
