Smc-chartered plane carrying PPES arrives in PHL

SAN Miguel Corp. (SMC) said the first 40,000 sets of personal protective equipment (PPE) it will donate to frontliners arrived on Wednesday on board a Boeing-777 that it chartered from China.

The protective gear is part of the P500 million earmarked by the conglomerate to help augment existing supplies and better equip Filipino medical frontliners in fighting the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

Company President and CEO Ramon S. Ang said the firm has chartered the aircraft from Philippine Airlines, a company that it once controlled, and filled it with PPE sourced from suppliers in China, which will be donated to various hospitals in Luzon.

The shipment consists of 40,000 hazmat suits and goggles seen to help boost local supply of medical-grade PPES. Local manufacturers are ramping up production capacity.

“We are very fortunate to have been able to buy this much PPES. Globally, demand is so high. Many of the big countries want to buy them all. That is why when the opportunity to buy this much came, we grabbed it, and chartered a large aircraft to bring the supplies home,” said Ang.

SMC earlier announced it was buying the first 10,000 PPES to be made by local garments manufacturers belonging to the Confederation of Wearable Exporters of the Philippines (CONWEP). The group was tapped by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Health (DOH) to reconfigure their operations to ramp up local production of PPES.

SMC plans to continue buying locally-produced PPES to donate to medical practitioners.

The DTI and DOH are targeting a capacity of 10,000 PPE coveralls per day from members of CONWEP, which normally export garments to top global brands.

Both the DOH and the Philippine General Hospital approved the design of the local PPES to ensure they are “medical-grade” and CONWEP has secured the supply of raw materials.

“We are hoping that with these developments, more doctors and nurses nationwide will have less worry about their safety. It is crucial that our medical frontliners have the necessary protective equipment when they fight this virus, and we are glad to be contributing to our government’s efforts to address this issue,” Ang added.