Businessman Manuel V Pangilinan opens the MVP group’s emergency quarantine facility in Antipolo, Rizal, to help care for employees with asymptomatic to mild cases of COVID-19. Select areas within the 10-hectare space of the First Pacific Leadership Academy (FLPA) have been repurposed into makeshift rooms, augmenting FPLA’s existing hotel facilities currently being used to isolate employee-patients.
The emergency quarantine facility will provide optimal care to MVP group’s employees and help decongest hospitals in Metro Manila following the recent surge of COVID-19 in NCR+. The facility will house a total of 240 individual air-conditioned quarantine tents and beds. Construction began in the first week of April 2021.
“The essential services — connectivity, power, water, road networks, among others —we have continuously provided since the onset of the pandemic have been the source of stability for many Filipinos, and it is our employees, the backbone of all our Companies, that have allowed us to be contributors in moving for economic recovery,” Pangilinan says.
Doctors and nurses to be housed in FPLA will work on 8-hour shifts 24/7 to treat MVP group employees throughout their 14-day isolation in the quarantine facility. Meals, medical supplies, and phone and data connectivity will all be provided. Employees who test positive for COVID-19 will be given Quarantine Leave, separate from standard Sick Leave credits.
Earlier this year, Pangilinan also committed to providing vaccines to his Group’s employees, qualified dependents, and household members. The order would be adequate for 300,000 individuals, and that his group will shoulder the costs of the vaccines for employees. The rollout is supported by an internal communications campaign to encourage participation.
All internal efforts of the MVP group are part of a broader, overall support for the government in its fight against COVID.
“Our efforts to take care of our workforce aim to reduce overall community transmission while protecting and providing breathing space to hospitals and medical frontliners, who have been our anchor and support as we continue to battle this pandemic,” Pangilinan adds. Metro Pacific Hospital Holdings Inc. (MPHHI) operates the largest hospital chain in the Philippines.
Just this week, vaccinated nursing staff from MPHHI’s Saint Elizabeth Hospital in General Santos City, Manuel J. Santos Hospital in Butuan City, and West Metro Medical Center in Zamboanga City were flown into Manila to augment the healthcare staff of NCR hospitals. Pangilinan thanked the nurse volunteers, who he says showed “bayanihan at its best.”
Through MPIC’s logistics arm MetroPac Movers Inc., Pangilinan also initiated the storage of over 1-million vials of COVID-19 vaccines in partnership with the government earlier this year.