Inspiring COVID-19 Response Stories from the HBS Club of the Philippines Alumni
Written by Alicia Morales, President, HBS Club of the Philippines / Edited by Marge Friginal-Sanchez
Throughout history, the Philippines has suffered from an inexhaustible number of deadly typhoons, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other natural disasters due to its location close to the equator on the Pacific Ring of Fire. As such, helping other people in times of crisis has become second nature to Filipinos. Here are several Harvard Business School alumni that have inspired the nation with their response to the COVID-19 pandemic — from building an ecosystem, sharing leadership strategies, to healing the nation as one.
Jaime A. Zobel de Ayala II, MBA 1987II
Chairman and CEO, Ayala Corporation
“Due to the pandemic, the Ayala Group has shifted to a proactive and solutions-oriented approach to the challenges we now face. It has viewed the crisis as an important transition for the company in its support of customers, partners, and the community at large.
“We have worked together to survive this crisis and have proudly contributed, as a group, over $110 million — through employee support, business operations waivers, and monetary and in-kind donations — as a response to the COVID-19 crisis in the Philippines.”
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Guillermo D. Luchangco, MBA 1967E
Chairman, The ICCP Group
“The ICCP Group has offered its property, the World Trade Center Manila, one of the largest event facilities in the Philippines, to be converted into the first temporary health care COVID-19 facility called WTC: Heal as One Center. The Ayala Group, through AC Health, funded and facilitated the conversion.”
Aurelio Montinola, MBA 1977G
Chairman, Far Eastern University (FEU)
“To assist our medical frontliners, we set up the gym of FEU Alabang with a 50-bed capacity for the outsourced healthcare workers of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), one of the COVID-19 testing labs in the country. We had excellent coordination between RITM and FEU Alabang and arrived at a finished product that RITM was happy about.”
Eugenio Lopez III, MBA 1980A
Chairman Emeritus, ABS-CBN
Carlo Katigbak, AMP 176
President & CEO, ABS-CBN
“ABS-CBN Corporation, the Philippines’ leading media and entertainment company, has taken a multi-pronged approach in responding to the global COVID-19 pandemic — using its resources to help the government address the needs of the Filipino people while ensuring the safety and well-being of the employees, staff, artists, and journalists of the network.
“Together with its foundation, the company has raised US$ 6.8 million from donations — to purchase food supplies for families affected by the enhanced community quarantine, deliver 110,000 surgical masks, 46,000 N95 masks, and other personal protective equipment to 72 hospitals, and provide free meals and snacks to thousands of frontliners with the help of its partner organizations and donors.
“It also continues to serve its audiences with much-needed information and entertainment through comprehensive news coverage on COVID-19 on TV, radio, cable TV, and online; harnessing technology to mount shows, including the first virtual concert in the country featuring more than 100 of its stars, and also offering free access to over 1,000 movies via its streaming service, iWant.”
Federico R. Lopez, MBA 1989H
Chairman and CEO, First Philippine Holdings
“During this crisis, First Philippine Holdings (FPH) has provided stop gap measures to support low-income communities with basic provisions until the government could mobilize its own resources and strengthen social cohesion. FPH has donated a seed amount of $1 million.
“In terms of hospital capacity, FPH has provided temporary facilities for The Medical City and the National Kidney Institute, particularly staff housing, to free up space within the hospital premises for COVID-19 treatments. This amounted to approximately $400,000.
“At quarantine capacity, FPH is working with the Philippine Ports Authority to create a 2,000-quarantine bed facility by converting pier terminals and passenger ships. FPH has committed to provide $2 million to this effort.
“Finally, in collaboration with the Philippine General Hospital, FPH is set to increase their laboratory capacity from 150 tests per day to as many as 4,500 per day, assuming a 3-shift schedule. Massive testing is considered to be a cornerstone of the national COVID-19 response strategy.”
Jaime I. Ayala, MBA 1988F
Founder and CEO, Hybrid Social Solutions, Inc. (HSSI)
“In the war against COVID-19 in the rural areas of the Philippines, 500,000 volunteer village health workers are the foot soldiers on the ground who go house-to-house to promote new behaviors and monitor symptoms. They man quarantine control points 24/7 and attend to patients that need to be isolated at village health stations. Many operate without light at night and lose communications when they cannot charge their phones. HSSI is distributing PPE and solar equipment to these valiant frontliners in 12 provinces.”
Angie G. Flaminiano, AMP 196
President, NutriAsia, Inc.
“NutriAsia stands with the Philippines as one in embracing the Filipinos’ natural nurturing spirit and brotherhood by extending support and service to our most vulnerable countrymen severely impacted by the current pandemic.
“In alliance with Project Ugnayan, a collaboration effort among 59 private business establishments, NutriAsia donated $2 million to assist indigent families in the most affected cities and municipalities in the country. Likewise, we led the distribution of our local vitamin C-rich drinks to the brave frontliners — health workers in more than 80 hospitals and military men in 8 LGUs — for hydration and an additional vitamin boost to their immune systems. NutriAsia also distributed over 60,000 face masks across the Philippines to aid our trade partners — store merchandisers, cashiers, baggers, security, and other store personnel. These are our efforts in our shared battle against the COVID-19 crisis.”
Vicente Co, OPM 26
President, Philippine Plastic Industry Association
“We converted our plastics plant into a manufacturing facility for Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) and partnered with a logistics company to deliver these to hospitals in need. Our operations initially produced 10,000 PPEs within a few weeks.
“Nobody was ready for this pandemic: not the developed nations, and certainly not a third-world economy like the Philippines. We never built an industry for PPEs, much less medical-grade ones. But it was the only thing standing between life and death for our frontline health workers. In the bidding war for scarcely available protective gear around the world, we never had a chance. We had to find a local solution.
“We were understandably devastated when the Department of Health and the Philippine General Hospital rated our products Level 1–2, instead of Level 3–4. However, as I learned from my studies at HBS, the question we needed to answer was, “Who are my customers?”. From there, we never looked back.”
Maria Carolina Dominguez, AMP 182
President and CEO, John Clements Consultants Inc.
“In this time of crisis, we are helping by donating PPEs to protect our frontliners, and food to those who have been greatly affected by the lockdown. While we have been honored to help raise funds for that, we don’t want to stop there. We at John Clements are also passionate about sharing ideas, strategies, and thought leadership to help manage and sustain businesses in these challenging times. We have teamed with an award-winning, world-class learning solutions company, CrossKnowledge, to create a Leading through the COVID-19 Crisis portal. The material in this portal has been organized into six key topics: The Crisis Economy, Leadership Skills in a Crisis, Leading Your Team, Managing Yourself, Managing Cash Flow, and Reimagining the Future. For each of these topics, we have curated material from global thought leaders that will help organizations get on top of this crisis and propel them into an exciting and rewarding future.”
Ambassador Joseph Yap, MBA 1976I
Philippine Ambassador to Singapore; former President & CEO
Isabelle Gotianun Yap, MBA 2016D
Filinvest Group
“To assist the government, the Filinvest Group, through its Filinvest City Foundation, has pledged to donate $2 million worth of Personal Protective Equipment to frontliners, ventilators and PCR testing equipment to hospitals, provide a temporary shelter at The Palms Country Club for the health workers of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), and use the Filinvest Tent as one of the mega-quarantine centers.
“Filinvest Development Corporation’s (FDC) most important project thus far was making data available to the country’s key decision makers. The company approached the Department of Health (DOH) and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to fast track a dashboard for the Inter Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF-EID) and sponsored the data warehouse and data analytics needed to provide timely and accurate information to key decision makers.
“FDC subsidiaries Filinvest Land Inc. and Eastwest Bank have also offered a 30-day payment extension for its clients. Filinvest Lifemalls in Metro Manila has likewise provided a rental waiver for qualified non-operational tenants during the ECQ, while FDC Misamis Power Corporation, under FDC Utilities, Inc., continues to operate amidst the declaration of a nationwide state of calamity to ensure a steady power supply in Mindanao.”
Art Tan, HBS Amp 185
Vice Chairman and CEO, Integrated Micro-electronics Inc
Ayala-led Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc. (IMI) seeks to bring down the cost of nursing coronavirus (COVID-19)-afflicted patients back to health by manufacturing alternative ventilators and other breathing aid solutions in the Philippines.
This is in support of the Philippine government’s call for the local sourcing and manufacturing of COVID-19 solutions, IMI said in a press statement on Tuesday.
Together with its UK-based subsidiary Surface Technology International Limited (STI Ltd.), IMI has organized a series of virtual consultative and information-sharing sessions with medical experts, health practitioners and concerned government agencies to explore non-invasive alternative ventilatory strategies using the Ventura Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device solution.
CPAP is a form of low-cost ventilator that applies mild air pressure continuously to support patients with breathing difficulties. The proposed solution is a non-profit initiative based on an existing off-patent CPAP system that has been modified to optimize oxygen consumption.
The Ventura CPAP system is approved by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for use in the UK. Its design is licensed from the University College London Hospital (UCLH) and Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains under special conditions particularly for use in COVID-19 cases.
The proponents in the UK have granted a license to IMI to manufacture the product in the Philippines.
IMI is working with the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Health Technologies (IBEHT) of DLSU University in localizing the manufacturing of the system. However, IMI has yet to announce a timeline on how soon these medical devices could be launched in the Philippines.
UCLH reported that the use of the Ventura CPAP system has had a 60–70 percent success of sustaining COVID-19 patients needing intubation. The patients eventually went on to full recovery.
IMI, which has manufacturing hubs in 10 countries, is a leading global technology and manufacturing solutions company in the world. It specializes in electronics for long product life cycle segments such as automotive, industrial electronics and the aerospace market. It provides engineering, manufacturing, and support and fulfillment capabilities to diverse industries globally. (First published in Inquirer.Net by Doris Dumlao-Abadilla)
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About the author:
Alicia Rita L. Morales is the Managing Director of the John Clements Leadership Institute. Alicia has developed leadership programs for over 7,500 senior leaders and high potentials from leading multinationals and regional conglomerates in Southeast Asia. Concurrently, Alicia is the first woman Independent Director of publicly listed First Gen Corporation elected to the board since 2018. She is also an Independent Director of BPI Securities Corporation as of February 2020.
Previously, Alicia was the youngest Chairman of the Philippine Stock Exchange for two consecutive years and an active director for five years. She was then concurrently a Director of the Securities Clearing Corporation and a CEO of a top brokerage firm for nine years. Prior to that, she worked in Hong Kong for five years as Managing Director of a deposit-taking company in Hong Kong and a Director of an investment company. Before that, she was an Assistant Vice President for a subsidiary of a Southeast Asian conglomerate in Hong Kong, handling corporate finance and corporate banking accounts in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Thailand and Indonesia for three years.
She garnered The Outstanding Women in Nation’s Service (TOWNS) award for the category ‘Business-Stock Exchange’ in 2004, and the Triple A Award from Maryknoll/Miriam College in 2014. She is a member of the International Coach Federation, a certified coach of Zenger Folkman, and a certified discussion leader of the Harvard Business School. Ms. Morales is a certified public accountant with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and Accountancy from the University of the Philippines (1984) and an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, with a triple major in Finance, Marketing and Economics (1990). She is also a graduate of the Advanced Management Program from the Harvard Business School (2014) and the President of the Harvard Business School Club of the Philippines (2018–2020).
