PH-Australia Friendship Day
This weekend, the Australian Embassy is hosting a free and on-demand film festival to celebrate Philippines-Australia Friendship Day.
On May 22 and 23 , the Embassy will host on mateshipandbayanihan.com
The film program will also feature a selection of seven short films from Flickerfest, Australia’s only Academy Award accredited and BAFTA recognized Short Film festival.
The weekend “Stream and Sip” festival will also highlight Australian music on Spotify and Australian films on Netflix. The Embassy will also be offering a ‘Taste of Australia’ experience by bringing together online retailers of the freshest and finest Australian fruits, food, and beverage.
EDSA Busway concourses at SM Malls
Department of Transportation (DOTr) Secretary Art Tugade and SM Prime President Jeffrey Lim lead the virtual groundbreaking ceremony of the EDSA Busway Concourses located at SM North Edsa, SM Megamall, and SM Mall of Asia.
Commuters can look forward to a more comfortable, safe, and convenient travel experience with state-of-the-art facilities, including a concierge, ticketing booths, and turnstiles for the Automatic Fare Collection System.
The concourses, as shown in the background, will complement the DOTr’s innovative EDSA Busway project to provide safe and convenient access for commuters to the EDSA Busway Stations and for pedestrians crossing EDSA.
PSFI’s Trudeau one of Puerto Princesa’s outstanding women
Puerto Princesa recognized Marvi Trudeau, Pilipinas Shell Foundation Inc’s (PSFI) deputy executive director, as one of the Outstanding Women of Puerto Princesa in celebration of Women’s Month last March.
Trudeau’s advocacy projects began with Kilusan Ligtas Malaria (KLM) in 1999. More than 20 years later, her projects had decreased malaria cases in Palawan by 92 percent; mobilized 71 tons of produce from farmers to food suppliers during the pandemic; provided agricultural and tourism livelihood opportunities to hundreds of Palaweños; and established sustainability projects for educating indigenous people (IP), preserving the environment, and using solar energy for electricity and potable water generation in far-flung areas in the province.
PSFI is the social arm of the Malampaya deep-water gas-to-power project, the pioneer in the country’s natural gas industry, under Shell Philippines Exploration B.V. (SPEX).
Other health-related projects of PSFI include curbing the HIV-infection, enabling health care workers through Lingap sa Kalusugan, providing PPEs and COVID-19 testing, and community health insurance for as low as one-peso a day via Impok sa Kalusugan.
Through PSFI, Trudeau also paved the way for IPs, especially women, to become economically empowered with the Integrated Support to Indigenous Peoples program. PSFI’s SINAG (Save, Invest and Nurture Access to Green Energy and Technology) also equipped over 6,000 families with electricity and potable water using solar energy micro-grid systems in seven clustered communities. In 2020, Trudeau spearheaded Ani Para sa Bayani to help farmers sell their harvest and help provide 85,532 meals to frontliners and 61,946 meals to the vulnerable sectors of the community.
Globe, PDRF underscore importance of getting vaccinated
Globe, in partnership with the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF), is one of 13 corporations to voice its commitment and collaboration to the Ingat Angat Bakuna Lahat campaign.
Globe fully supports
Issa Guevarra-Cabreira, Globe chief commercial officer said in the spirit of bayanihan, the company is one with other private sector institutions and government in the vaccine program. She also stressed Globe will continue to provide products and services that uplift the lives of its customers as the pandemic rages. Among these are life-enabling products such as KonsultaMD, GInsure, and GCredit.
“We commend T3’s programs encouraging Filipinos to get vaccinated against COVID-19 so we can reopen our economy and be on our way to recovery. For our part, we are committed to bringing more innovations that will empower each and every Filipino and allow us to combat this crisis together,” Cabreira added.
Apart from Globe, other corporations that rally behind PDRF’s campaign are: BDO, Cebu Pacific, Food Panda, Goldilocks, ICTSI, Jollibee, McDonalds, Megaworld, 711, SM Supermalls, Smart, Unilab, and Zuellig Pharma.
Laus Group strengthens COVID response
Laus Group of Companies (LGC) has fortified its effort to help mitigate the spread of the virus in the region, particularly among its employees and communities across Central and Northern Luzon.
LGC has repurposed its quarterly training to discuss the importance of the COVID-19 vaccination to help educate and inform our employees about the ongoing nationwide inoculation.
For the first quarter of 2021, the LausGroup has invited the director of the Institute of Biology and Biotechnology at the National Institutes of Health UP-PGH and well-known infectious disease and tropical medicine specialist, Dr. Edsel Salvana, as its initial guest speaker to help shed light on the importance and the effects of getting vaccinated.
LGC has donated vaccines and has procured for its employees as well. The group has enforced a self-imposed ECQ and a stricter set of protocols among its employees. It has also doubled up its safety and security measures.
SB Finance Company Inc. has signed a strategic partnership with OneConnect Financial Technology Co. Ltd. , a leading technology-as-a-service platform for financial institutions and an associate of Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd., to provide Filipinos with greater accessibility to credit and better customer experience in an effort to promote financial inclusion among the masses in the Philippines where approximately 65 per cent of the population remain unbanked.
Through the partnership, OneConnect will help SB Finance develop an end-to-end omnichannel digital finance platform using OneConnect’s artificial intelligence (AI) and electronic Know-Your-Customer (eKYC) technologies to digitalize loan application, credit-decisioning, fund disbursement and payment acceptance, as well as to mitigate risk exposure while enabling SB Finance to scale their operations, enhance their service capability and widen their reach to serve more Filipinos. The automated and cloud-based platform will be accessible through various platforms such as mobile, web and Agent App. API connectivity accessible to staff, merchants, dealers and customers will also be enhanced.
Through automation, SB Finance will be able to streamline data collection for various regulatory requirements such as Know Your Customer (KYC), Know-Your-Merchants (KYM) and Know-Your-Agents (KYA).
Johnson & Johnson backs Nurse LEAD program
Johnson & Johnson Philippines Inc. and the University of the Philippines-College of Nursing (UPCN) announced the launch of Nurse LEAD, a certificate course program that aims to strengthen Filipino nurses’ competencies to reduce the health worker coverage gap in the country.
Launched on International Nurses’ Day, the Nurse LEAD Program, is supported by the Johnson & Johnson Foundation, led by UPCN in collaboration with the Johnson & Johnson Center for Health Worker Innovation. The 160-hour course will cater to practicing Filipino nurses in the local public health system and consist of both online and face-to-face sessions, focusing on building capacities for delivering primary healthcare services, leadership and management skills, and fostering collaborative practice among relevant disciplines.
