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Philippines, 17 Aug 2025 |
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PBA rivals RSA, MVP set aside rivalry in time of Covid pandemic By Eddie Alinea of The Manila Times PhilBoxing.com Wed, 06 May 2020 With the continuation of what is turning out a storied rivalry in the PBA stymied by the government’s lockdown on all sports activities, the San Miguel Corp. and the Manny V. Pangilinan Groups of Companies have diverted their battle for supremacy off the court. The two conglomerates of giant business empires, which own three teams each in the play-for-pay league are instead diverting their vast resources on how to help the government in the fight against what seems to be the unstoppable spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in the county. Only recently, Ramon S. Ang, president and CEO of the SMC, announced that his group has just turned over to the government five sets of Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) COVID-19 testing machines and High-Throughput Automated RNA Extraction systems capable of 11,000 additional tests per “to boost the Department of Health's expanded testing initiative.” Mr. Ang himself presided over the turnover ceremonies, with Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje and Research Institute for Tropical Medicine director Celia Carlos receiving the equipment recently at the SMC Towers head office in Pasig City. The recent donations, Mr. Ang said, are parts of the company’s "Sama-sama sa Laban, Walang Iwanan" program vs Covid 19. Almost on the same day that the SMC head made the announcement, the MVP Group, not to be outdone, said it has agreed with with the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Iglesia ni Cristo to work together and build a 300-bed quarantine center at the Philippine Arena in Bocaue town in Bulacan intended for use of returning Filipino Overseas Workers. The center will be turned over to the Inter Agency Task Force (IATF) on OVID-19 when it's completed. National Task Force (NTF) on COVID-19 chief implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr. the facility will start operational not later than next week. Apart from the latest donation, SMC - which owns the San Miguel Beer, Barangay Ginebra, and Magnolia Hotshots franchises in the league - has also partnered with the DA's “Kadiwa ni Ani at Kita” rolling market scheme. Millions in cash and in kind on top of separate relief campaigns of the companies under the SMC umbrella, had also been poured in by Ang with the end in view assisting exploring fuels subsidiary, Petron Corporation, as added boost to bolster food accessibility throughout the country. So far, 30 Petron service stations are being used as rolling store sites to bring food products closes to communities and provide people a safe, convenient, alternative way to buy essential goods during the quarantine period. SMC is looking forward to mobilizing 60 more similar stations to bring more farmers' produce to more communities. The Pangilinan’s Group, which owns the PBA franchises TnT Katropa, Meralco, and NLEX, has, too, been doing its own share to help the government and Filipino society survive this hard times. "This is another manifestation of our group’s cooperation in supporting the government's COVID-19 emergency response programs and helping the country recover from this pandemic,” Pangilinan stressed adding: “special and exclusive access' along the North Luzon Expressway to the Philippine Arena will be provided for IATF quarantine teams and medical support groups by the Metro Pacific Tollways Corp (MPTC) and NLEX Corp. Free toll-fee will be accorded to medical front liners, ambulances, medical service vans, and buses of the Health department. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eddie Alinea of The Manila Times.  |
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