TWO social-responsibility arms collaborated to cofund the construction of a two-story, four-classroom school building in a chosen area in Western Visayas. The PLDT-Smart Foundation Inc. and the BDO Foundation Inc. recently signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) for the restoration of the Pis-anan National High School in Sibalom, Antique. PLDT-Smart Foundation, a nonstock and nonprofit organization that serves as the social-outreach arm of the country’s largest telecommunications provider, the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and its wireless subsidiary Smart Communications Inc., indicated its interest to partner with the BDO Foundation to construct a school building in Antique damaged by Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan).
“They were referred actually by Oparr [Office of the Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery] that linked us, BDO Foundation, to PLDT-Smart,” BDO Foundation, Inc. Program Director Rosemarie Espinosa said.
Among the list of schools in the Yolanda corridor recommended by BDO, Pis-anan National High School was chosen for the grant, as some of its buildings were damaged by the typhoon and badly needed new classrooms to accommodate more enrollees. In the MOA signing, the BDO Foundation said it looked at three months of construction work so that the school could be ready by next school year.
Present during the MOA signing were BDO Foundation President Maureen C. Abelardo; Lucy Co Dy, member of the board of trustees and treasurer; PLDT-Smart Foundation President Ma. Esther O. Santos; and Odette de Guzman, PLDT-Smart Foundation office manager. The BDO Foundation Inc. is the corporate social responsibility arm of BDO Unibank, the largest bank in the Philippines chaired by Teresita T. Sy-Coson. Special to the BusinnesMirror