BIZ BUZZ: Gender equality advocates
Four publicly listed Philippine companies made it to the 2022 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (GEI) roster, which feted businesses that promote an inclusive work environment and support the evolving needs of employees. The country’s GEI representatives came from just two business groups—the Consunji and Gokongwei conglomerates.
Consunji-led DMCI Holdings and Semirara Mining and Power Corp. as well as Gokongwei-led Robinsons Land Corp. and Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc. (RRHI) were among the 418 companies across 50 industries in 45 countries and regions that qualified for the 2022 GEI.
Of these four, two have female presidents: RRHI’s Robina Gokongwei-Pe and Semirara’s Maria Cristina Consunji-Gotianun.
The GEI framework scores companies across five key pillars: female leadership and talent pipeline, equal pay and gender pay parity, inclusive culture, antisexual harassment policies and prowomen brand. There are also expanded areas of information requested to support the broader goal of providing more robust environment, social and governance data to investors.
On average, GEI members have around 31 percent women representation in the board, and 72 percent of them have a chief diversity officer or an executive with the primary responsibility of prompting diversity and inclusion. These companies have an average of 39 percent of women in revenue-producing roles and 61 percent require a gender-diverse slate of candidates for management positions.
GEI members also tend to hire more women: 83 percent of these firms have a direct strategy for recruiting women, and 66 percent of them conduct global gender-based compensation reviews. These companies are also more likely to adopt family-friendly policies: for example, 75 percent of member companies offer on-site lactation rooms for new mothers and 59 percent of them provide child-care subsidies or other financial support.
“While our businesses belong to male-dominated industries, we do not distinguish roles and opportunities according to gender. We empower and promote people based on their individual merits and contributions to the organization,” said Isidro Consunji, chair of both DMCI and Semirara, which landed on the GEI roster for the second straight year.
—Doris Dumlao-Abadilla
FEU in Brunei
Far Eastern University (FEU) is expanding into the overseas market and its first stop is Brunei Darussalam, where it is setting up a private nursing school.
FEU was invited to participate in a joint venture to open such a nursing school.
“The Brunei government expressed a need to augment the country’s nursing graduates and approached FEU to help out,” FEU senior vice president for corporate affairs Gianna Montinola told Biz Buzz.
“The details of this agreement are still being worked out, but we hope to start operations in the second half of 2022,” she added.
Last Monday, an FEU disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange showed that FEU had teamed up with Brunei’s Ministry of Health and Jerudong Park Medical Centre Sendirian Berhad to establish, manage and operate this new school.
It’s probably no surprise that the Philippines was top of mind when it comes to the nursing profession. And it’s great that beyond deploying nurses around the world, we are now sharing our expertise in training nurses with our Southeast Asian neighbors.
Phinma, which has invested in Myanmar and Indonesia, is also offering nursing courses.
—Doris Dumlao-Abadilla
Counterfeit
Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) provider Solane said it had seized over P2.6 million worth of counterfeit products last year after it concluded a series of raids to help pluck out substandard LPGs from the market.
The busts covered more than 50 areas in the country, resulting in a total haul of 1,024 illegal LPG tanks.
After President Duterte in October last year signed into law a measure regulating the LPG industry to ensure consumer protection against industry malpractice, Solane said it was looking forward to “bigger industry efforts eradicating the unlawful trades in the LPG market.”
The new law penalizes underfilling of cylinders, tampering with markings, and selling adulterated LPG. Of the penalty collection, 40 percent will be distributed to industry players while the remaining 60 percent will be given to the Department of Energy for enforcement of the law.
