Community Engagement

At San Miguel, we do not see strategy and CSR as separate. Our overarching value, malasakit, is actionable and sustainable. At the heart of the relationship between our businesses and society is not just the charitable and philanthropic deeds that we do, but business activities that are aligned with social issues. From the roads and power plants we build to the food and drink we put on people’s tables, our projects support the basic needs of the Philippines as a developing economy.

The Company’s social development arm, San Miguel Foundation, was established in 1972, and in the 50 years since, the Foundation has run a wide range of projects and activities in areas such as environmental stewardship, community and livelihood development, housing, education, nutrition, health, and disaster relief.

San Miguel has always been a vital first responder in times of crisis and natural disasters. Over one billion pesos went toward housing the homeless following Typhoon Sendong in 2012 and Typhoon Yolanda in 2013. Since then, San Miguel has demonstrated the same quick response in the face of calamity, donating millions of pesos in relief goods and mobilizing to help communities get back on their feet. The most recent example of its CSR efforts was in full evidence during the pandemic. Between 2020 to 2022, San Miguel donated close to 530 million PHP in food donations, and almost a billion pesos in medical donations alone.

As a company that prides itself in being a contributor to national development on the macro level, San Miguel is present at the micro level through the Foundation. Like its parent, San Miguel Foundation has taken a problemsolving approach to address important social issues. Its key aims are closely aligned with the company’s social development agenda: lifting Filipinos out of poverty and strengthening community and national resilience.

Having deliberately moved away from the traditional philanthropic model of the last few decades, the foundation has tried to take a context-focused approach to corporate giving that has a greater chance of producing social benefits far exceeding those provided by individual donors or traditional foundations. In solving social problems, specifically in helping communities tackle barriers to participation and progress, the Foundation collaborates closely with government agencies, international and regional organizations, and other nongovernmental actors.

A big part of our sustainability thinking is trying to understand society’s big problems, and how our businesses can play a part in solving them.

Our incubators for social change, San Miguel’s Better World sustainable communities make use of idle, abandoned, and vacant properties and repurpose them for community and civic uses such as green space, learning centers, and health care facilities. Most important, through committed, long-term community engagement, we are able to encourage greater civic capacity, and give the economically disadvantaged a voice in their community’s future.

Better World Tondo, San Miguel’s first community center, focuses on food waste, hunger, and improving learning outcomes. Member families are provided free meals and weekly groceries and after-school learning tutorials.

When public schools closed during the pandemic, our afterschool program run by the Foundation’s partner AHA Learning Center innovated to keep kids safe and engaged, expanding their hours and services to help children cope with the challenges of distance learning. AHA also provides its expertise in social-emotional learning and trauma-informed care to help our students (and their parents) recover emotionally.

Local Community Engagements

The impact of COVID-19 had acute effects on women, including a rise in gender-based violence amid lockdowns, women’s loss of economic security, and increased demands in the home that fall largely on women.

Designed to be a safe space for women and mothers in nearby communities—a place where they can share their stories and silent struggles and find the support they need—Better World Cubao H.E.R. (Health, Empowerment, Recovery) Center is the Foundation’s newest Better World initiative. San Miguel Foundation and AHA have developed a comprehensive approach to women’s overall health and well-being, empowering women to advocate for themselves and one another.

As we see it, each of San Miguel’s Better World initiatives helped build communities where values and citizenship, and participation matter—where people can hope for a better life and be self-propelled to seek it.

One of the keys to ending hunger and poverty in both rural and urban areas is to enhance linkages. Launched in February 2021 as a response to the disruption in supply chains, Better World Diliman serves as a ready marketplace for fruits and vegetables rescued by our partner Rural Rising.

As of June 2022, we have rescued 950,000 kg of produce and helped some 4,500 farmers throughout the Philippines. Apart from food rescue, Better World Diliman provides training and access to farming inputs and other resources to promote resiliency in the face of disruption and market shocks.

Another of San Miguel’s flagship community programs is the School for Experiential and Entrepreneurial Development (SEED) Sumilao through which we strive to promote the welfare of agricultural communities while helping ensure food security. Through a partnership with SEED Philippines, we hope to raise the next generation of farmers and agri entrepreneurs. Farmers and farm workers are undervalued in our society, driving away many of those who might otherwise be attracted to agriculture. SEED Sumilao adopts a holistic approach to teaching through classroom instruction, hands-on learning, and enterprise development. Students take on a raft of courses that center around character development, enterprise management, communications, and farming technology. During the pandemic, the school’s focus shifted given the urgent need to strengthen local food production and create more resilient and reliable food systems.

Health is another major focus area for San Miguel. Through a network of community clinics, San Miguel continues to provide its host communities with better access to healthcare services. Every year, over 1,200 individuals benefit from healthcare services offered for free at San Miguel Brewery community clinics in Valenzuela, Pampanga, Davao, and Cebu, San Miguel Mills’ community clinic in Batangas, and the Petron Community Health Center in Pandacan and Bataan.

These clinics, though small in scale, provide specialist care, particularly for patients with diabetes, tuberculosis, and other cardiovascular diseases. San Miguel, through the San Miguel Foundation, also runs regular medical missions and outreach programs in far-flung communities where basic healthcare services are wanting.

Another long-running, high-impact initiative of the Foundation is its First 1,000 Days project for mothers and babies, a health and nutrition intervention program starting from the mother’s conception up to the child’s second birthday. The program, spearheaded by San Miguel’s Food group, aims to address the wasting and stunting of Filipino children by focusing on an infant’s growth trajectory, providing nutritious food, promoting healthy routines and behaviors, and reducing health disparities among vulnerable children and families.

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