It looks like there won’t be any St. Luke’s Medical Center (SLMC) branch rising anywhere outside Metro Manila in the foreseeable future. In 2017, SLMC announced a plan to build a hospital at Ayala Land’s Azuela Cove in Davao.
The site had been boarded up to prepare for construction but eventually, the project was scrapped.
SLMC president and chief executive officer Dennis Serrano said while they had previously looked into establishing a hospital facility in Davao, subsequent market research showed that demand for premium health care was still concentrated in Metro Manila. This compelled them to scrap their earlier prospect.
READ: St. Luke’s sets P24-B expansion program
“Many of our patients in the outlying [areas] in Luzon, in Mindanao, in Visayas, when they need to be taken care of, they come to Manila,” he said. They had wanted to change this trend by bringing St. Luke’s closer to the provincial market, but noted that research findings did not support this goal.
“While it was a health-care decision, it was also a business decision,” he added.
Despite this setback, Filipinos looking for quality healthcare still have something to look forward to as the SLMC has embarked on a P24-billion expansion to improve its services and widen its reach.
This expansion includes the construction of a new P18 billion-hospital at the Aseana complex in Paranaque to be finished by 2029, as well as the P6 billion renovation of its Quezon City branch, which will be completed either by 2027 or 2028. —Alden M. Monzon
NU Bacolod coming
If the SM Mall branches are expanding, so are its schools, apparently.
Sy family-owned National University (NU) is opening its 11th campus in the country, this time in ‘chicken inasal capital’ Bacolod City.
READ: BIZ BUZZ: NU rising
“In Bacolod, we hope to provide quality, updated, innovative education to the young Bacolodnons—both in content and in instructional method that reflect the NU standard of quality education,” said Renato Carlos Ermita Jr., NU president and CEO.
Both the Bacolod campus and East Ortigas campus in Pasig City will open in August.
Next year, Las Piñas and Cebu will also have their own NUs.
Of course, this is all part of NU’s massive goal of having 20 campuses by 2028 and a whopping 100,000 students by 2027.
NU, which has also been catching up on UAAP cheerdance championship numbers, currently has 55,000 students, from around 40,000 two years ago.
With three years left and a gap of 45,000 students, we’re curious to see whether NU will be able to reach its goal without, of course, sacrificing quality education. Abangan! —Meg J. Adonis
‘COD’: Bad for RE
Filipino e-commerce shoppers may know the acronym COD as “cash on delivery,” but industry sources in the renewable energy (RE) market said “cause of delay” may be best to describe some local government units (LGUs).
Contrary to the Marcos administration’s push for ease of doing business, RE providers have to deal with the tedious process of securing permits for some of their projects.
Completing all the necessary permits sometimes takes a minimum of six months, said the sources, who are known players in the RE space.
They, however, kept mum when asked which provinces are hard to deal with.
Their wish for the upcoming State of the Nation Address of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.: that government will streamline the permitting process.
They even backed the Department of Energy’s plan to integrate LGU permits into the energy virtual one-stop shop (EVOSS) system, the online platform for processing of energy project permits.
The Marcos government is aiming to grow the share of RE in the power mix to 35 percent by 2030. —Lisbet K. Esmael
Citicore cozying up to SMC
Citicore Renewable Energy Corp. (CREC) wishes to score more deals with billionaire Ramon Ang, with its officials hoping that their newly-announced Bataan solar farm venture won’t be the last.
“Anything is possible kapag na-happy ang San Miguel sa amin, baka dumami (If they are happy, there may be more),” CREC president Oliver Tan said in a chat with reporters.
He said that in any partnership, more tie-ups would “naturally” come if both parties are satisfied.
It was earlier this month when CREC disclosed to the public its joint venture with San Miguel Global Light and Power Corp. (SGLP), a unit of SMC Global Power Holdings, the power arm of Ang-led San Miguel Corporation.
According to Tan, they are targeting to start ground works by the latter part of the year, with the completion eyed by 2025.
“We’re doing the engineering design. The timetable is: once we secure all the remaining permits, we look to start construction before year-end,” he said.
Both companies did not reveal the intended investment for the project, but industry experts estimated that producers must shell out P40 million to P50 million per megawatt.
According to the previous disclosure to the local bourse, a “special purpose entity” would be created, with CREC initially holding 49 percent while the rest would go to SGLP.
CREC will subscribe additional shares during the construction phase, subsequently leading to equal share in the ownership arrangement. —Lisbet K. Esmael