ThomasLloyd, BioPower turn over mobile swabbing unit to Bacolod

Bacolod City received its second mobile swabbing unit as the city implements innovative efforts to provide safe and efficient COVID-19 testing in the region.

The BioPower Group with its shareholder and project sponsor, investment firm ThomasLloyd, donated the mobile swabbing unit in a handover ceremony at the Bacolod City Government Center on May 19.

The mobile swab unit will collect samples from frontliners at health centers and quarantined OFWs in Bacolod City.  In a speech during the turnover ceremony, David Mamuyac, senior manager for HSSE and admin of the BioPower Group, said that, “instead of having the people crowd the clinic or the hospital to get tested, we bring the facility to them.  That way, we’re preventing the spread of the virus.”

Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia said: “This is all because of team play. I would like to say, here in Bacolod City, particularly in our government, I work together with our city officials. Probably that is one factor, at the very least, that we are at a level so far that our problems are still manageable up to this point in time.” The first mobile swab unit started collecting samples from frontliners at health centers and quarantined OFWs.

BioPower Group president Arthur Aguilar said in a statement, “we continue to respond in a variety of contributions in the region while also supporting creative approaches towards fighting COVID-19 such as this locally-made mobile swabbing unit for Bacolod.”

The group previously donated thousands of personal protective equipment sets, disinfectants, medical instruments and packed food items for medical frontliners in Negros hospitals. One of the BioPower’s facilities was converted into a warehouse to properly consolidate, inspect and redistribute these goods.

BioPower and ThomasLLoyd donated more than P5 million of goods for the fight against COVID-19 in the province of Negros Occidental.

The initiative aims to help ensure the protection of medical frontliners and provide much-needed supplies to hospitals and local government units.

“ThomasLloyd is proud to stand side by side with our local partners and all of the people of Negros Occidental, as we face the challenge of the pandemic.  Together, we will come through this successfully,” said ThomasLloyd Group Ltd. managing director and CEO- Asia Pacific Michael Airey.

BioPower is also working with Negrense Volunteers for Change Foundation Inc. and St. Scholastica's Bacolod Alumnae Foundation Inc. to encourage co-donors to expand current relief efforts in the province.

“Our group partnered with these two Foundations to intensify our COMBAT COVID-19 campaign and sustain our commitment to support the critical needs of especially of those in the front lines,” Aguilar said.