While the New Year brought hope for new beginnings to most, it was a different story for people in Palawan. The ruined landscape evoked sadness and desolation, following super typhoon Odette’s wrath.

He could have waited for the floodwaters to subside. But malasakit (compassion) for his fellow Palaweños and the immediate need to restore the Palawan network propelled 58-year-old Modesto “Dong” Q. Perez and his team to walk on the flooded road, strewn with enormous trunks of uprooted trees, a day after Super Typhoon Odette hit the province.

PLDT, Inc. and Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) have reconnected more areas in the Visayas and Mindanao after the onslaught of super typhoon #OdettePH.

PLDT, Smart, and the Makati Medical Center Foundation are working together to build more mentally resilient communities, and creating a safe space to support the country’s Health Heroes in the frontline service through the Better Today Conversations on Mental Health Awareness.

Over 355 college students, grouped into 78 teams, from 29 universities and colleges nationwide, joined the second season of the Smart Prepaid Innovation Generation (InnoGen) – an innovation grant program for the youth. Aligned with Smart’s and parent company PLDT’s core value of malasakit (compassion), InnoGen poses the challenge “How can the youth help the Philippines recover from the pandemic?”

Overcoming tough logistical challenges brought on by typhoon Odette, the PLDT group successfully delivers its first tranche of relief goods to the hardest-hit areas in the Visayas. PLDT and Smart, together with PLDT-Smart Foundation, have turned over around 500 food packs to the local government unit of Kabankalan City in Negros Occidental. These will be distributed to communities that were heavily impacted typhoon Odette. 

Following the onslaught of Super Typhoon Odette in the Visayas and Mindanao, Filipinos everywhere can join the bayanihan with the PLDT-Smart Foundation (PSF), PLDT, Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart), and PayMaya.

With restoration efforts of network facilities in full swing, PLDT, Inc. and wireless unit Smart Communications, Inc have reconnected Cebu, Dinagat, Siargao, and Surigao using Smart satellite phones.

PLDT and wireless unit Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) have restored wireless services in most parts of Mindanao after the southern Philippine region was pounded by typhoon Odette.

PLDT wireless communication Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) is first to respond to typhoon-hit residents in Barangay Mabua in Tandag City, Surigao del Sur. Smart, together with local partners BizTalk and F&H Marketing, deployed an emergency generator set, which powered the covered court-turned evacuation center, where around 74 families sought shelter.