Hospital, med school to rise on San Miguel airport complex, too

MANILA, Philippines—San Miguel Corp. will build a large, modern hospital on its sprawling Bulacan airport complex in partnership with a foreign medical institution as well as a school of medicine, the head of the conglomerate said on Tuesday (June 8).

At its annual stockholders’ meeting, San Miguel president Ramon Ang said the facility is part of the group’s efforts to help the Philippines get back on its feet after the ravages of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic which has forced the economy to contract at its sharpest rate since the end of World War II.

“Our Bulacan aerotropolis will have a new medical facility which we will build together with a foreign partner,” he said, adding that this third party could either be an American or Singaporean entity which is renowned in the medical field.

“This is part of our commitment to help the country build back better,” he said.

San Miguel—the country’s largest conglomerate by assets—is building a P735-billion international airport in Bulakan, Bulacan and has acquired 2,500 hectares of land in the province for a development that will also house commercial, residential and industrial spaces.

At the same time, Ang said the conglomerate is hiring 300 doctors and nurses for its efforts to administer vaccines to some 70,000 employees nationwide, along with its extended workforce, their families and business partners.

Ang said San Miguel is expecting delivery of AstraZeneca and Moderna vaccines in the coming weeks for this initiative.

Some of these doctors and nurses will also be deployed “on loan” to local government units to help implement government’s vaccination program.

“This is another way we can support government’s vaccination efforts — by sharing our resources, in this case, our employee medical professionals.” Ang said in a separate statement. “Right now, we are still finalizing our plans for the rollout of our vaccination program, and still waiting for the arrival of our vaccines. In the meantime, our doctors and nurses have committed to help out short-staffed LGUS and provide their services to them for free.”

At the stockholders’ meeting, chief financial officer Ferdinand Constantino said San Miguel’s various business units—including San Miguel Foods, San Miguel Global Power, Petron Corp., Ginebra San Miguel, and other firms—are “on track” in their recovery from 2020’s revenue drop due to the pandemic.

For 2020, San Miguel’s consolidated revenues declined to P725 billion from the P1 trillion recorded in 2019.

But Constantino said the initial numbers reported in the first quarter of this year point toward a strong overall performance for the group in 2021.

TSB