Business leaders air support for Aquino Administration's pro poor projects

By Jose Rafael Cesar Atencio

Thursday 31st of May 2012

MAKATI CITY, May 31 (PIA) -- Some of the country's leading business leaders on Wednesday expressed continued support for the President Benigno C. Aquino III's pro-poor programs.

The industry leaders gave their assurance at the sidelines of the launching of the League of the Corporate Foundation (LCF) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Expo 2012 at the Ayala Museum in Makati City.

Among the business leaders were PHINMA Corporation president Ramon del Rosario, Ayala Foundation president Lourdes de Leon, Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) foundation president Aurelio Montinola III, Knowledge channel president Rina Bautista, Asia Brewery Inc. President Michael Tan, Villar Foundation managing director Cynthia Villar and United Coconut Planter Bank president Ed Amistad.

In an interview with PIA, del Rosario said they are helping the government's pro-poor program through education. "PHINMA has joined hands with private schools in the rural areas of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao to reach out to poor but deserving students," he said.

LCF president and San Miguel Foundation Inc. (SMFI) executive director Camille Buenaventura, for her part, said they are committed to promoting the practice of CSR among businesses and helping out the government as well. "We have always wanted LCF to be the league of choice," she said.

"Anything that has to do with CSR, we want people to know ‘who do we run to?’ It’s the League of Corporate Foundations,” Buenaventura said.

"Today, we acknowledge the presence of some of the movers and shakers of Philippine CSR in the past 15 years of the league’s existence for they have stood by their goodwill missions and principles for the betterment of Filipinos," Buenaventura said.

“The League of Corporate Foundations has been committed to promoting the practice of CSR among businesses for 15 years. Now, as we close our crystal year and enter a new chapter in spreading the advocacy of making CSR a channel to reach out to communities, the trend is not only to look at CSR as mere giving or philanthropy, but more as a way of paying it forward to the communities we serve,” said Sonny Carpio, LCF chairperson and managing trustee of Aboitiz Foundation, Inc.

“This is why we explore new ways and strategies to make our CSR programs more relevant and sustainable, that is, through the annual CSR Expo,” he said. (PIA-NCR/RJB/JRCA)