CLARK FREEPORT — Pampanga Vice Governor Lilia Pineda and Converge ICT Chief Executive Officer Dennis Anthony Uy recently donated 5,000 face shields to Filipino frontliners in Libya.
In return, the Philippine Embassy in Tripoli thanked Pineda and Uy for their donation.
“The embassy would like to convey its gratitude to [Pineda] and [Uy] for their kind gesture that would benefit the more than 2,000 members of the Filipino community in Libya,” Embassy Chargé d’Affaires and head of Mission Elmer Cato said.
According to Cato, Pineda and Uy immediately responded when he conveyed the request of Filipino nurses and other hospital workers for personal equipment to protect them from coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
The request was made in October when more than 20 frontliners in several hospitals in Libya tested positive for coronavirus in a span of just a few days.
Nurses and other hospital workers comprise almost half the number of Filipinos working in Libya, which is among the countries hit hard by the pandemic, with more than 100,000 infections reported since March.
“Many of our kababayan in Tripoli, Benghazi, Misurata, and other parts of Libya have received their face shields and the Embassy is in the process of distributing more to those in remote areas,” Cato said.
He said the face shields are also being distributed to Filipinos working in the oil and gas sectors, as well as those in academic institutions.
The embassy also expressed appreciation to Senator Manuel Lapid, the members of Foreign Service Officers Batch IX of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Multisectoral Alliance of Filipino Migrant Workers in Libya, and the Filipino Community in Benghazi for covering the cost of shipping the face shields to Libya.
The Embassy also thanked the Clark Development Corporation and Luen Thai Corporation for donating PPEs for embassy personnel.
