PH firms want more involvement in vaccine rollout, survey shows

The majority of large Filipino companies want to be more involved in programs involving the rollout of more vaccines, believing that inoculation is the best way to protect Filipinos against the highly contagious and potentially lethal COVID-19.

This is one of the main findings of a survey of 200 member-companies of influential business groups that showed that 65 percent of them preferred to take part in the vaccine rollout, over other forms of assistance such as donation and charitable activities (2 percent) and livelihood training programs (1 percent).

The survey covered 34 business groups with the majority of the respondents coming from the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), Makati Business Club (MBC) and the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines.

The survey was conducted under the Shared Prosperity Covenant, a MAP-led group of 26 business associations. It was administered by MBC, and processed by Philippine Survey and Research Center Inc. The survey with 200 respondents was conducted from April 6 to May 16 this year, a time when the Philippines was already under quarantine for more than a year.

“About 65 percent believe they need to help procure vaccines, while others believe they need to be involved in vaccine administration, indicating their belief that vaccination is the strongest defense against COVID-19,” read a summary of the survey findings.

They were asked what they thought the private sector should do in the future and 41 percent said they wanted to handle vaccine administration, including the identification of venues needed for inoculation.

On the other hand, only 2 percent of companies surveyed said they would be more involved in “donations and charitable activities;” 1 percent in information dissemination programs; 1 percent in livelihood and upskilling programs and 1 percent in “pushing business to help society more.”

The survey also showed that amid the devastating pandemic, almost all or 99 percent of the respondents said they gave some form of support to their regular employees. Of this figure, 58 percent said they gave free vaccines, 30 percent said they gave either free or subsidized testing, treatment and medicines, while 6 percent said they provided personal protective equipment.

Some 71 percent of the respondents also said they gave support to contractual employees. Out of these, 37 percent gave free vaccines. Also, 65 percent of respondents said they also supported agency employees. In this segment, 34 percent gave free vaccines.

“The Philippine private sector always plays an outsize role in helping government respond to crises: this is already automatic,” said Francis Lim, who was president of MAP when ICD and MAP spearheaded the Covenant on Shared Prosperity.

“This partnership was biggest during the biggest crisis in our lifetimes and continues through this year,” added Lim, who is now president of Finex. —Roy Stephen Canivel INQ