San Miguel Corporation (SMC) reported that its “Ligtas Lahat” vaccination drive for A4 workers now covers major cities outside Metro Manila, where the company has significant operations and employees.

From July 2 to July 8, the company, through partnerships with government agencies, local governments, and local medical facilities, had vaccinated close to 2,500 employees from outside the National Capital Region, bringing SMC’s total number of A4 workers vaccinated to 7,189.

This was after 500 San Miguel employees received their vaccines yesterday in coordination with the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) and the City of San Fernando at the GreenCity Medical Center in San Fernando.

After Pampanga, Laguna, and Davao City, SMC employees based in Bulacan and Cavite are scheduled to get their jabs next week.

“Considering that most of our major facilities in food and beverage, packaging, power, fuels, and infrastructure are located outside Metro Manila, getting as many of our employees in the regions vaccinated as possible is key to making our workplace much safer. We thank our partners in government and the private sector for their unwavering support,” SMC President Ramon S. Ang said.

He added that, “These numbers are not that big yet but once our vaccine supplies arrive we will be contributing more to our national goals. Even now, we’re moving fast and vaccinating as many of our employees as we can. This is the best way we can help make sure that our economic recovery will be more sustainable.”

Early this year, SMC announced it was spending P1 billion on a program that would vaccinate 70,000 direct and indirect employees nationwide.

While waiting for its own supply of vaccines, the company has been hiring and deploying medical professionals to various LGU vaccination sites to boost government’s inoculation program.

With government’s directive to prioritize vaccinating Category A4 workers, it has also partnered with LGUs in the meantime to enable the vaccination of its essential workers.

“Basically, what we’ve been doing is we mobilize our workers, assemble them together, and use our own resources, so that they can be vaccinated through our LGUs. This way, we can support the LGU’s vaccination targets, get more people back to work safely, and at the same time divert thousands away from vaccination sites to reduce crowding,” Ang said.

In Sta. Rosa City, 600 Laguna-based employees from the across the San Miguel Group got their first dose of COVID-19 vaccines at The Medical City South Luzon, in partnership with the Sta. Rosa LGU headed by Mayor Arlene Arcillas.

Through the Davao City LGU, 1,369 San Miguel employees from various business units were vaccinated at the Davao Doctors Hospital Main in a four-day program.

Earlier, from June 3 to July 2, a total of 4,720 employees based in the National Capital Region (NCR) were vaccinated through the assistance of the Pasig and Mandaluyong LGUs at vaccination sites set up by SMC at the Jose Rizal University (JRU) in Mandaluyong, La Salle Green Hills, and the SMC Sports Complex at C-5 Road in Pasig City.

SMC also looks to establish 13 vaccination sites in Laguna, Cavite, Batangas, Albay, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Isabela, Bataan, Cebu, Iloilo, Bacolod, Davao, and Cagayan de Oro.