Meralco CEO and President, Ray C. Espinosa, thanks the employees for #KeepingTheLightsOn

As we enter the third week of this COVID-19 Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ), I thank everyone for your tireless efforts in keeping up the good fight to stay focused in sustaining our mission to #KeepTheLightsOn!

We hail our superheroes, the 662 employees on critical posts living inside Meralco premises. It is not easy being away from your families, taking shifts within social distancing measures. To the 2,521 skeletal force employees, mostly supported by Meralco’s fleet, we salute you for braving the open environment daily. And to the 2,631 employees who are on a work from home (WFH) arrangement, we equally thank you for we know that all your hands are on deck to ensure that Meralco runs like clockwork. Know that your hard work and dedication are greatly appreciated!

With our value malasakit, we have a long tradition to pull from. Let us dig deep and see how we have been able to sustain ourselves, our customers, and our country.

The past two weeks have been an exercise in gaining understanding, empathy, and taking fast, coordinated action:

• We purchased 418 laptops, over 29,000 face masks, 8,500 disinfectant/sanitation tools (gloves, sprayers, sterilizers), over 900 Personal Protective Equipment or PPEs (hazmat suits, goggles), and over 200 thermo-scanners. With the laptops, our WFH employees can expect to be provisioned along with VPN within the coming days.
• What we could not buy, we fabricated internally: face shields, protective barriers, disinfecting mats at entrances of our buildings, even outdoor disinfecting showers for hazmat-clad employees. Thank you to SLCM and OSRO for your innovative ways!
• We have started distributing vitamins for 6,000 employees and support contractors to help boost everyone’s immune system.
• Work areas are constantly disinfected. Employees on lockdown are provided beds and hygiene kits.
• Meralco vendors have been advised of a supply chain helpline for any assistance required.

For customers, we worked decisively and speedily:

• Quezon City’s COVID-19 regional evacuation center was energized on March 25.
• We completed the service application of Urban Homes which will provide free lodging to health workers at St. Luke’s Medical Center in BGC last March 23.
• We provided for the lighting of several checkpoints as requested by LGUs.
• For the Lung Center of the Philippines, we provisioned floodlights in its parking area that was converted into a triage for in-coming patients.
• Other notable installations include Cavite City Hall and Maynilad’s facilities in Cavite last March 21, and the Manila Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office last March 23.
• Many more facilities to ensure continuous public service by the national government, LGUs, and utilities were attended to with dispatch.

Our One Meralco Foundation has also been relentless, helping PGH, Heart Center, Lung Center, Rizal Medical Center, and other hospitals with supplies of PPEs. E-Sakay and OMF also partnered to provide the Pasig LGU with transport for health workers using e-jeeps. For low income families affected by ECQ, OMF also contributed food packs and started a fundraising campaign for them.

We need not look far. We have contractor employees on a daily rate basis who will not get compensation during the ECQ. Many of us know them by their names. They are construction and maintenance support personnel, encoders, meter readers, bill couriers, waiters, and similar positions. For these people who are with us daily, we initiated “A Day to Give”. I am heartened by the response to our call to donate one day’s worth of our salaries for them, and we recently surpassed the P10 million mark.

Thank you for all the efforts so far; for wonderfully #KeepingTheLightsOn. Let us sustain the momentum. Let us keep the faith. Let us renew and strengthen our value of malasakit and #excellence in our jobs.

Going beyond the power and light we deliver, this situation calls for the light inside each one of us to be a beacon of reliability and hope. As we talk to customers on the phone or online, as we do what we have to do for the current to flow, and for all of us to be safe and sustained … let that light always be ON. I exhort you to keep your heads up high because I know that we can all do this together! We can fight this battle as one!  Now is the time to shine.