BDO Unibank continued to find ways to serve people affected by the armed conflict in Marawi as well as communities devastated by the recent earthquake in Ormoc.
BDO joined other companies in providing financial assistance to the families of at least 100 soldiers and police personnel killed in the Marawi City siege. Facilitated by BDO Foundation, the bank’s P2-million donation was turned over to the families in an event in Malacañang Palace.
BDO Foundation also partnered with Makati Medical Center (MMC) Foundation to support a medical-surgical mission for injured soldiers. BDO Foundation donated 200 hygiene and grooming kits to the Marawi Mercy Mission for military personnel confined at Camp Evangelista Station Hospital in Cagayan de Oro City. The mission was organized by MMC Foundation in partnership with the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation and the Adventist Medical Center in Iligan.
For an estimated 33,000 school children displaced by the fighting in Marawi, classes were inevitably disrupted. In response, BDO Foundation and One Network Bank, the rural bank subsidiary of BDO, provided 238 teachers with educational kits to enable them to continue teaching students in temporary learning spaces in evacuation centers.
These initiatives were on top of the relief operations organized by BDO Foundation for people affected by the Marawi crisis. The foundation previously provided relief goods for 3,000 families displaced by the fighting and around 300 soldiers injured in the military operations. In another relief operation, volunteers from BDO branches in Butuan handed out school supplies to 180 students who transferred from Marawi schools.
Immediately after the 6.5-magnitude earthquake hit Leyte province, volunteers from BDO branches in Ormoc City, Leyte, with support from BDO Foundation, also mounted relief operations for the affected families in Ormoc City.
BDO officers and staff, led by BDO Leyte-Ormoc branch head Felda Orito, distributed 1,700 relief packs containing food and water to disaster-stricken residents of the city. Church volunteers and representatives from the local office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development also joined the activity.
The relief operations were initiated by BDO Foundation in response to the earthquake and almost 300 aftershocks that shook Leyte. The foundation conducts relief operations with the support of volunteers from more than 1,000 BDO branches nationwide. The initiative is in line with BDO Foundation’s commitment to serve communities affected by natural or man-made disasters.
The Leyte tremors triggered landslides, cut off electricity and damaged homes, school buildings and roads. Due to the earthquakes, Ormoc was placed under a state of calamity by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
