J. Albert Gamboa CALACA, Batangas – This coastal town in southern Luzon has been named by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) as the most business-friendly municipality in the Philippines for two consecutive years. Out of 1,489 municipalities throughout the country, Calaca won the prestigious PCCI award in 2017 and 2018. The eruption of Taal Volcano last January caused distress among the residents of Batangas and nearby Calabarzon provinces. Many local government units in the region declared a state of calamity when thousands of people were forced to evacuate to safer ground. Business enterprises and civic organizations lost no time in launching the Bangon Batangas movement – dedicated to the resiliency of the Batanguenos in resurrecting from the devastation caused by Taal’s restiveness. A staunch supporter of Bangon Batangas is South Pacific Inc. (SPI), a leading importer and wholesaler of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). SPI has weathered a spate of economic disruptions ever since it started operations in 2015. Its sister company, LPG retailer Republic Gas Corp. (Regasco), is equally resilient amid these challenging times. When Taal erupted, operations of the Philippines’ biggest LPG terminal owned by SPI were hardly hampered. At that time, state volcanologists raised alert level 4 which meant that an even more hazardous eruption was imminent. It may be noted, though, that SPI’s terminal is beyond the 14-kilometer danger zone. SPI President Jun Golingay said the terminal stopped operating for only one day to allow for safety checks made by its personnel. “Once the results of the assessment showed that the terminal was safe to operate, we resumed the loading of customers’ trucks and the deployment of delivery vehicles to client sites as well as for stock transfers,” he disclosed. Contingency measures were undertaken by SPI, including frequent safety checks and the diversion of trucks to alternate routes after the closure of roads in Tagaytay City and the nearby municipality of Lemery. Regasco’s dealers and refilling stations made similar contingencies in Batangas City, Lipa City, and other neighboring towns affected by the Taal eruption. Despite the turbulent situation, employees of SPI volunteered to conduct relief operations in various barangays that were hard-hit by the calamity. They distributed food packs, hygiene kits, used closed, medicines, and facial masks at the evacuation centers. It only proved that corporate social responsibility and the bayanihan spirit still prevailed among the Batanguenos. SPI’s initiative was made possible by the company’s commitment to the Bangon Batangas advocacy to help the province rise literally from the ashes of Taal. Mr. Golingay hopes that the current COVID-19 outbreak will not be disruptive to the operations of SPI. Nevertheless the company is prepared to deal with this crisis as it cooperates with the government and complies with directives from the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases during the ongoing state of public health emergency, which was recently declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization. [email protected]