SMPC ramps up COVID-19 response

Integrated energy company Semirara Mining and Power Corporation (SMPC) is rolling out a ramped-up COVID-19 response program to boost its resiliency against the virus.

In its virtual Annual Stockholders Meeting, SMPC President and COO Maria Cristina C. Gotianun disclosed that the company plans to vaccinate over 5,000 of its employees and indirect workers in its mine site, power plant complex and corporate office by the second semester.

The bulk of the vaccines will go to its mining workforce as Semirara Island residents have limited access to timely and quality healthcare. There is no tertiary hospital in the island.

SMPC employees, their dependents and island residents in need medical attention normally go to the company’s Semirara Infirmary, the only Department of Health (DOH)-licensed infirmary health facility in the island. In 2020 alone, the infirmary served 16,985 patients.

To enhance the island’s COVID-19 containment measures, the company also repurposed its sports facilities into a 217-bed quarantine facility for employees and residents.

Gotianun added that SMPC will provide free jabs to Semirara Island residents who want to be inoculated. The company will also assist its host local government units in transporting, storing and administering the vaccines.

Last April 30, SMPC donated 3,000 rapid antigen kits to the Antique provincial government to help identify COVID-19 positive cases.

To aid in decongesting the quarantine facilities in the Province of Batangas, SMPC repurposed a building inside its power complex in Calaca to serve as its employee quarantine facility. The building can accommodate nearly 60 employees.

In 2020, its power subsidiaries Sem-Calaca Power Corporation (SCPC) and Southwest Luzon Power Generation Corporation (SLPGC) also remitted over Php 225 million to its Batangas host communities to aid the LGUs in managing the effects of COVID-19.

SMPC is the only power producer in the country that owns and mines its own fuel source, allowing it to generate affordable and reliable baseload power for the Luzon and Visayas grids.