Fortunately, Ayala Foundation relies not on mere imagination, but puts work in

making these seemingly daunting and "extra" tasks a reality. In addition to the
commitment to effort, such vision shows that extensive thought, research, and
experience has contributed in determining Ayala Foundation’s chosen role in Philippine
society, in arriving at its main program themes of Education, Youth Leadership,
Sustainable Livelihood, and Arts and Culture, and its Special Projects.
This is the first and primary lesson that Ayala Foundation teaches us: social
development, especially in business, must not be a mere afterthought. Reaching out to
the marginalized and vulnerable sectors should not be done at the last minute or as a
publicity stunt.
Wider communities : The second lesson is staying true to the essence of a community.
One aspect of Ayala Foundation’s mission is “understanding community realities and
engaging people in the process.” At the onset, we can already see the distinction
between Ayala Foundation’s focus on the communities themselves from those of other
organizations’ focus on individuals. There really is nothing wrong with the latter
approach, but they can learn a thing or two from Ayala’s strategy.
Ayala Foundation sets its foundation by including the communities in the process of
crafting any development intervention that they seek to implement. What does the
community actually need? What are the communities’ sensibilities, culture, and
dynamics? How does the community want to move forward? By listening to the
community, Ayala Foundation prevents any imposition of its will of what is "good." It is
a process, and a process that must not be overlooked.

The perfect examples of how the communities’ potential is considered are the projects
under the Sustainable Livelihood theme of the foundation. First, the Iraya-Mangyan
Project helps the indigenous community in reviving their tradition of
weaving nito baskets through education and skills training of the Iraya-Mangyan
community of Puerto Galera, Talipanan, Oriental Mindoro. Second, the MDC Greens
project in Southville 7, Calauan, Laguna, a relocation site for families displaced by
Typhoon Ondoy and the Pasig River rehabilitation, harnesses the skills of the
community to grow ornamental plants for enterprise. Third, Project Lio, a development
program in El Nido, Palawan, engages the community in various industries such as
vegetable farming, chocolate-cashew enterprise, weaving, and skills training in the
tourism sector.
Also, in most of their partner communities, the foundation works to establish
cooperatives that will be long-term platforms for management.
Call of the Times
Ayala Foundation has had active roles in disaster relief and rehabilitation. From
typhoons (from Ondoy in 2009 to Yolanda in 2013), earthquakes (Pampanga and
Cotabato in 2019), to volcanic eruptions (Taal in 2020), the foundation took part in the
multi-sectoral efforts of raising funds, delivering relief goods, and reconstructing
shattered communities. Not only concerned with natural calamities, the foundation also
extended aid in conflict-ridden areas such as Marawi City after its siege in 2017 by
establishing the Siyapen Center (“siyapen” is the Maranao word for “care”) in 2018 as
the first community-based drug rehabilitation center in ARMM. Said center eased the
transition of the region into the pandemic by converting it into a patient care center for
COVID-19 cases.
And recently, also in the emergence of the pandemic, aside from the relief operation led
by the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) of which the Ayalas are leading
members, the foundation again responded to the call of the times and overcame the
greatest challenge of its existence, so far. This we will talk about further in the next
part of this article.
Surely, celebrations for the decades' worth of achievements and changed lives through
the Ayala Foundation could have taken place if not for the pandemic. But we know for
sure that it chooses to celebrate its milestone year, still, through persistently building
communities, which the country needs now more than ever.
AYALA and THE PANDEMIC
The coronavirus pandemic has been dubbed as the worst global disruption of political,
social, and economic activity since World War II in the 1940’s. Like all of us –
individuals, schools, churches, businesses, and others – Ayala Foundation was not
spared from it.
Ayala Foundation was not spared, not in the sense that it had to close operations, lay
off employees, or cut ties with partners. In fact, the Ayalas, including Ayala Foundation,
handled the economic impact of the pandemic on their enterprises well. It was not
spared because it had to face the pandemic head on – again, in the name of service.
As its 60th year arrives, celebrations were put on the sidelines. Suddenly, the call of the
times was at the foundation’s doorstep.
The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest challenge that Ayala Foundation has had to
face, so far.
Pandemic as a test of fate
The COVID-19 pandemic is a milestone – not in any way as an achievement – but as a
reckoning point for institutions, such as the Ayala Foundation, on their capacity to
weather shocks and to adapt to what the situation calls for. Institutions, may they be
public or private, for profit or non-profit, last not merely because of their funding
sources or effective management, but because of their advocacies’ relevance and their
ability to withstand tests of fate. As pillars of society, they are supposed to last for
generations and live through disasters, political transitions, wars, and yes, even
pandemics.

We can say that Ayala Foundation has succeeded this test of fate. The foundation stood
by its vision and devised Project #BuyAni, a program for relevant partnerships within
and outside of Ayala, among them the Macquarie group of Australia, that enabled the
foundation to feed vulnerable sectors and at the same time, connect farmers directly to
the market. This way, local farmers and enterprises continue to have a source of
income during the pandemic.

In its partner communities, Ayala Foundation of course distributed "care packs" as aid
during the quarantine to residents of El Nido, Palawan and the Iraya-Mangyan
indigenous community in Oriental Mindoro. The foundation sourced some of the
contents of its care packs such as essential food items from the partner farmers
working in surrounding barangays, and were put together in bayongs by local weavers.
It also launched a virtual market called the Lio E-Lengke, an online market that aims to
support local farmers, weavers, and sellers of cooked food and local delicacies. In the
midst of all these, Ayala Foundation did not forget the call for nationalism. In
partnership with the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, it launched the
Magiting Face Mask, which bears the colors of the Philippine flag and the eight-rayed
sun. The face mask serves to honor our Filipino frontliners and essential workers who
are making a huge sacrifice for the nation to contain the spread of the pandemic.

This is besides all the contributions by the various Ayala-led companies in their own
name. For instance, AC Health has provided testing kits and PPEs to various hospitals
such as the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) in Davao, among others, to
increase the testing capacity for COVID-19, while Ayala Malls waived rental feels to its
tenants, majority of which are small to medium enterprises (SMEs), during the ECQ.
In addition, the Ayalas led the conversion of the World Trade Center in Pasay City into a
designated quarantine facility called the “WTC We Heal as One Center.” For its
continued operations, AC Energy committed to cover half of the facility’s electricity cost,
and has donated critical supplies, for a total of around P24 million. Valuing the spirit of
cooperation, the Philippine business community organized Project Ugnayan through the
Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) in partnership with Caritas Manila,
which raised more than P1.5 billion and has reached nearly 3 million families or more
than 14 million individuals as of May 27, 2020. “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,” said Project Ugnayan lead Fernando Zobel de Ayala, who is
also the president and COO of Ayala Corporation.
To cater to its own, the Ayala group allotted a COVID-19 emergency response package
of P2.4 billion composed of wages, bonuses, leave conversions, and loan deferments to
its employees early in the public health emergency when it was already clear that work
had to be stopped.

When the pandemic hit, our first priority was to protect our employees. We wanted to
make sure that they felt financially secure and physically healthy. We immediately
released an emergency response package that covered wage continuance, leave
conversions, and loan deferments to our direct employees.
We built dedicated medical facilities where our employees and their families could seek
testing, treatment, and quarantine support. We provided stipends to partners who were
on daily wage, “no work, no pay” arrangements—including about 70,000 construction
workers and some employees of our agency providers—to help them ride out the period
of work stoppage.
The second phase was to ensure that our broad ecosystem stayed in place as we
collectively tried to recover. We gave many of our mall tenants a reprieve on rent. Our
banking side deferred loan payments and gave breaks on fees and interest charges.
The third order was to support the community at large, especially those most
economically vulnerable. In a developing country like the Philippines and a burgeoning
urban center like Greater Manila, this was a large segment of the population.

Despite the major setbacks brought by the pandemic, regional business leaders see a
silver lining from the renewed unity between the private and the public sectors in these
unprecedented times. In Global Compact Academy’s webinar “#UnitingBusiness to
Respond to COVID-19” held Tuesday, Ayala Corp. chairman and CEO Jaime Augusto
Zobel de Ayala said the partnership between the private sector and the government has
been instrumental in effectively addressing the immediate needs of the Philippines, as
the country’s main island Luzon enters the 57th day of enhanced community quarantine.
“We’ve been working hand in hand with the government to see what kind of economic
stimulus would be necessary,” Zobel said. “Not a day goes in the Philippines where the
private sector and the public sector are not having dialogs, exchanging notes and
seeing where we can help each other at all different levels.” Quick, multi-sectoral
response Immediately after the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine,
the Ayala group unveiled a P5.5-billion COVID-19 response package that aimed to
protect its employees, support the tenants of its malls and commercial properties, and
provide relief to the communities it serves. Zobel said this response package enabled
the group’s more than 72,000 direct-hire employees as well as 75,000 day laborers in
its construction business to have financial security in a time of uncertainty.
The group also acknowledges the importance of supporting micro, small and medium
enterprises which cover 60 percent of total annual revenues of Philippine businesses,
contribute about 35 percent of the total gross domestic product and employ 63 percent
of Filipino workforce.
Ayala commits to supporting its network of 200,000 SMEs and over 1 million micro-
enterprises under three key aspects namely, health, business continuity through
digitalization and financial assistance. For instance, AC Health opened a 24/7 medical
hotline.
Meanwhile, Globe offered digital packages for workfrom-home arrangement and data
storage requirement, while BPI currently works on a product that will help MSMEs
recover.
In partnership with the government, the Ayala group took the lead in the conversion of
the World Trade Center into a 500-bed quarantine facility, which was effectively turned
over to the Armed Forces of the Philippines in less than two weeks.
The group also donated all the testing booths for four Mega Swabbing Centers, which
aim to swab 55,000 individuals in the Greater Manila Area over the next three weeks.
Moreover, through Go Negosyo’s Project ARK, Ayala and other big business groups
donated RT-PCR machines to ramp up the testing capacities of six government hospitals
at 7,000 swab tests per day.
“Out of a difficult and painful situation, we can all come out of this in a way that we’ve
created a new sense of purpose in unity— in our constituency, in our communities—
then I think there’s a lot that we can build on in the future,” Zobel said.
The Ayala group has also been instrumental in collaborating with other members of the
private sector for Project Ugnayan--a multi-sectoral initiative that reached 5,445,255
urban poor families, equivalent to over 7.6 million Filipinos, through different
distribution channels led by Caritas Manila’s Project Damayan. Resilience These are just
short-term solutions to the bigger issues, Zobel said. He said the pandemic has exposed
how vulnerable we all are, and this presents an opportunity to realign business
strategies to make us all resilient in the future.
“If ever there’s a time to basically reflect on the way we’ve all been doing things and
on the kind of world we want to create, it is now,” Zobel said.
“In the end, we can emerge as more unified, more resilient.” Zobel’s statement was
backed by Kokosai Kogyo chairperson and CEO Sandra Wu, who said the crisis has
actually strengthened her company’s sustainability agenda. Meanwhile, UN ESCAP
Undersecretary General Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana said companies should begin
investing in “soft infrastructure,” which includes a change of mindset and behavior for
all its stakeholders. As a founding member of the United Nations Global Compact
Network Philippines, Ayala Corp. believes that sustainability is key to a better future. It
supports Global Compact’s 10 Principles and aligns its business objectives with the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. To further the group’s contribution to a
sustainable future, it launched its own Ayala Sustainability Blueprint that features
specific sustainable development goals with particular business units as champions.
At Ayala, each business unit sets a target to help bring the Filipino to Ayala’s vision of
2030. These targets were further strengthened during the annual stockholders’
meetings, as the leaders across the Ayala group disclosed their respective sustainability
initiatives in relation to their commitment to the SDGs.