Residents of Bindoy town in Negros Oriental wait for their turn to be vaccinated during the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines that the Lopez Group reallocated for the benefit of the local government unitFirst Philippine Holdings Corporation (FPH) is donating 100,000 additional Moderna anti-COVID-19 vaccines to local government units (LGUs) and institutions around the country as part of the Lopez Group’s continuing efforts to help the government control the spread of the pandemic.

Ricky Carandang, FPH vice president and head of corporate communications, said that the Lopez Group has started the distribution of the Moderna vaccines, and it hopes to complete the deliveries within the first quarter of the year. These donations will come on top of the 83,800 AstraZeneca and Moderna doses that FPH and its subsidiaries reallocated to LGUs last year.

The total 183,800 anti-COVID shots reapportioned by FPH to target recipients from 2021 to date does not include thousands of vaccines that the FPH Group is administering for employees, contractors and their dependents, noted Catherine Cabrillos, FPH’s vaccine reallocation project manager.

Cabrillos said this year’s recipients include the Ilocos Norte provincial government and the town of Burgos also in Ilocos Norte; San Jose City, Alfonso Castañeda, Carranglan and Pantabangan in Nueva Ecija; Floridablanca, Lubao, Porac and Santa Rita in Pampanga; Lobo in Batangas province; and the provincial government of Sorsogon in Bicol. The University Health Service of the University of the Philippines, on the other hand, is getting over 2,000 AstraZeneca anti-COVID-19 shots.

FPH is finalizing with the National Task Force Against COVID-19 the donations for Guagua and Sasmuan in Pampanga, Batangas City, Iloilo City and Cagayan de Oro City.

“In our own small way, we help in government’s program to recover from the pandemic by expanding the scope of our own vaccination program. Through our presence in the provinces, we are able to get in touch with LGUs and facilitate the task of coordinating vaccine deliveries not only to the LGUs hosting our projects, but also to nearby areas whose residents equally need protection against COVID-19,” Carandang noted.

“The recipients were identified by the CSR teams of the FPH subsidiaries that conducted site validation and prepared their recommendations based on the needs of the communities,” Cabrillos added.

The subsidiaries handling the vaccine rollout include First Philippine Industrial Park together with FIRST College in Batangas, First Balfour, and First Gen Corporation with its renewable energy arm Energy Development Corporation. (Story/Photos by: Joel Gaborni)