Alcantara-led Alsons Power Group has allocated for this year a total of P40 million for corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs in Mindanao, including various initiatives in the areas of education, environment, infrastructure and community development.
The company’s CSR initiatives this year includes a scholarship program for 200 deserving students. The firm is also funding the construction of a new school building for Alabel National High School in Sarangani and a multi-purpose gym in Barangay Baluntay’s Datu Abdullah Tondog Elementary School also in Alabel, Sarangani.
Alsons Power has also allocated funds for Alcantara Foundation’s reading enhancement program dubbed “Samahang Big Brother”, designed to improve the reading skills of children in the communities and provides faculty development training for teachers.
“We believe that education is key to poverty alleviation and, as such, has always been the group’s priority program especially in the underserved areas where we operate. We wanted to be a major contributor to the improvement of the quality of life of people in the Mindanao communities that have been home to our businesses from the very start,” Alsons Power’s corporate affairs manager Ruben Tungpalan said.
The group also supports several socio-civic projects, including the purchase of hospital equipment that will be utilized by the Provincial Hospital of Sarangani and basic medical equipment for the use of barangay health workers.
Livelihood and environmental initiatives, meanwhile, include river and coastal protection and enhancement programs, bangus fry re-stocking for Sarangani Bay and water system development at Barangay Baluntay in Alabel, Sarangani, among others.
Alsons Power is led by the Alcantara group, which already has more than 50 years of business experience in Mindanao with investments in property development, agribusiness and aquaculture.
Alsons Power’s power plants are expected to generate a total of 588 megawatts by 2019, or a little over 25 percent of Mindanao’s projected peak power demand. Riza T. Olchondra