San Miguel Corporation (SMC) reported that it has reached its goal of vaccinating over 80% of its nationwide workforce, with more than 56,000 employees and extended workers receiving either their first or second doses of COVID-19 jabs.
This, after the company’s “Ligtas Lahat” vaccination task force recently achieved its goal of vaccinating over 35,300 employees nationwide, well before the end of August, using company-procured Astra Zeneca vaccines.
The figure includes 18,900 employees in Metro Manila—where the bulk of SMC’s workforce is, and where vaccination was fast-tracked due to the spread of the Delta variant.
“We’re almost there. Today, about 80% of our 70,000-strong workforce nationwide have already received either their first or full doses of COVID-19 vaccines. We still have a number of employees to vaccinate in various areas, but we anticipate to complete our vaccinations by end of August,” said SMC president Ramon S. Ang.
“Our goal is to protect as many of our people as we can and create safer workspaces. By vaccinating our employees, we also contribute to our country’s vaccination targets,” he added.
Ang said that vaccination for Metro Manila employees was substantially completed within the two-week enhanced community quarantine period.
Prior to the arrival of its Astra Zeneca vaccines, thousands of employees had also received their vaccines through SMC’s partnerships with local government units and the IATF, while thousands others also availed of jabs from their respective LGUs.
“It’s really only through vaccination that we can boost and sustain economic recovery, and that is why we’ve made every effort to reach everyone in our network. Right now, just a few more areas with smaller employee populations have yet to get their jabs,” Ang said.
To ensure the widest coverage of its vaccination drive and make it easier for employees to get their jabs, SMC has activated vaccination sites across various locations nationwide.
These include NCR, Laguna, Cavite, Batangas, Camarines Sur, Albay, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Isabela, Bataan, Cebu, Iloilo, Bacolod, Aklan, Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Leyte, and Davao Occidental. Meanwhile, among the locations where the company will continue to hold vaccinations through the end of August, are Palawan, Ormoc, Tacloban, Zamboanga, and Surigao.
For employees that received their first doses, Ang said that the company will reactivate the sites in eight weeks, or starting in the second half of September, to administer second doses, to fully complete their protection from the virus.
“We’re determined that the vaccines are made available to everyone in our network nationwide. Our program is called ‘Ligtas Lahat’; it demands that we reach every single member of the San Miguel workforce,” he said.
“This is how committed we are to protecting our people. We hope our efforts serve to emphasize the importance of getting vaccinated so we can all turn the corner of this pandemic,” Ang said.
