Project Ugnayan, the largest collaboration among private sectors, distributed grocery items and P1.37 million worth of gift certificates to displaced households during the enhanced community quarantine. Around six million families or seven million of the poorest individuals were reached in Metro Manila. These large businesses worked with the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) and church-based non-profit organization Caritas Manila.

“By coming together in a bayanihan spirit so quickly, we were able to create a program of this scale and importance. This unprecedented assembly of so many of the country’s corporations and business families coming to the assistance of the most vulnerable in our society illustrates and speaks of the heart and generosity of the business community,” says Project Ugnayan lead convenor Fernando Zobel de Ayala, chief operating officer of Ayala Corporation.

The network of volunteers, barangay captains, and “spiritual frontliners” were able to distribute aid all over Metro Manila “under very difficult conditions and over very long hours each day.” This unprecedented assembly of the private sector was composed of over 50 businesses, corporations, and organizations such as Coca Cola Philippines, New World Hotel, Global Food Group, One Meralco Foundation, and Jollibee.

“The unity in diversity demonstrated by Project Ugnayan reveals the private sector’s serious commitment to help our country recover from the lost economic momentum because of the pandemic. We are proud to be part of this extraordinary collaboration of industries that will prove most valuable in getting the economy back on track,” PDRF co-chair Manuel V. Pangilinan says.