Amid dark and difficult times, the Filipino people’s resilience and camaraderie have built a more empathic culture and safer spaces online. With the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health becomes a prevalent issue that affects everyone. PLDT and Smart, through its collaborative initiative and platform Better Today, recently partnered with #MentalHealthPH, one of the country’s largest mental health advocacy groups, to drive conversations on mental health awareness.

PLDT and Smart are working with youth-led organization Kids for Kids Philippines (Kids for Kids PH) and SaferKidsPH, the pioneering consortium of Save the Children, The Asia Foundation and UNICEF, to take on the fight against online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSAEC) in barangays.

For Dr Andresul Labis of the Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NMMC) in San Simon, Cagayan de Oro City, connectivity remains to be as important as ever as the country faces rising COVID-19 cases, especially for facilities located away from city centers.

The country’s largest, fully integrated telco firm PLDT urged businesses to rethink their strategies and re-examine their approaches to cope with the long-drawn-out pandemic.

PLDT Smart Foundation (PSF) recently received a donation of US$200,000 (Php10,110,000) from one of its technology partners Huawei. The donation will be used to help fund programs of PSF as well as some corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives of PLDT and Smart.

PLDT is on its way to a record-breaking one million new Fiber customer connects for 2021 as it reported over 478,000 net new Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) customers for the first half of the year.

The Philippines' largest fully integrated telecommunications company PLDT is set to further expand its network bandwidth capacity, with its participation in the construction of the newest international undersea cable system, APRICOT. This will boost the telco’s network capability to service the country’s growing data traffic driven by more digital services and new technologies such as 5G, and adds to the country’s advantage to help draw in global hyperscalers expanding in the region.

Leading integrated telco PLDT has laid down an additional 95,000 kilometers of nationwide fiber footprint in the first half of the year, further expanding the country's most extensive fiber infrastructure to more than 524,000 kilometers as of end-June 2021, an increase of 22% from a year ago.

PLDT wireless unit Smart Communications, Inc. offers life-saving tips on how to prepare for disasters and how to handle emergencies. Smart capped the National Disaster Resilience Month in July with the final run of the #SafePH Disaster Preparedness digital caravan in Metro Manila.

PLDT and Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) together with social enterprise and e-commerce platform Cropital extended capital support to small-time rice farmers in Floridablanca, Pampanga in celebration of the birthday of PLDT and Smart Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan in July.