Dear GICC Members, 

We are at the end of our 2nd month in quarantine and I hope you are healthy and safe amidst this pandemic.

We had our GICC May Fellowship Wednesday, May 13, 2020, via WebEx. I’d like to extend my thanks to P&G for hosting our event on their platform, Board of Trustee Chris Eugenio for an amazing job moderating our online fellowship and to our GICC Sub-Committee Heads and the EMT for keeping everyone engaged despite our various locations and a few Internet challenges. 

During the fellowship, we were very pleased to have BGen Charito Ching Plaza, Director General of PEZA as our Guest Speaker, and PEZA Deputy Director General Mary Harriet Abordo and Atty. Kenneth Chua of Quisumbing Torres as panelists.

BGen Ching Plaza shared the performance of PEZA.  For the first quarter of 2020, the country had a 27.98% drop in new investments and 6.6% decrease in employment. Despite the quarantine, 58% of companies nationwide are operational with the majority coming from the IT-BPO Industry. She extended gratitude towards the aggressiveness and effectiveness of the IT-BPO companies in terms of keeping jobs secured and the businesses running.

Here are some other key points BGen Plaza shared: 

PEZA has coordinated with the LGU's, police, barangays, to make them aware that PEZA exporters and IT BPOs are provided unhampered travel to and from the offices or during delivery of work from home essentials.

PEZA is motivating and checking with companies to see if they can afford to build housing facilities or dormitories near their locations to secure workers. If not, PEZA will provide the housing facilities to make sure companies can make up for their losses. 

PEZA is looking into dedicated shuttle services for PEZA companies in the 4 ecozones.

PEZA will also be putting up their own COVID Testing Facilities. They are speaking with providers like Project Ark (rapid test) and Red Cross (PCR test). PEZA will be evaluating their proposals by Monday. This testing facility will be faster because it will be dedicated to our workers. Companies may decide if they'll avail the PCR test or Rapid Test. 

PEZA aims to be 100% operational once everyone has been tested and to remain as a COVID-Free, clean and healthy ecozone for all workers.

They have also requested for all expenses related to the COVID-19 response be an allowable deduction from the 5% GIC incentive.

PEZA has requested the Board to extend WFH beyond July 31st, if possible.

At the end of her sharing, she requested that we, GICC members who are under PEZA submit their letters and justifications for the requests stated above as we are in this fight together.

GICC has sent to PEZA its request to extend the work from home provisions of the PEZA Memorandum Circular 2020-011 to the end of the year. We will also send you a copy so that you can craft a similar request, as needed.

Keep healthy, everyone.

Elaine