Author: Padayon UP

With just more than a week of preparation, the University of the Philippines Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) has formally opened its doors as a COVID-19 referral hospital on March 30, 2020. The opening jibed with the launch of the UP-PGH COVID-19 Bayanihan Na! Operations Center on the same day. The Center will entertain COVID-19-related inquiries and donations.

PGH Director Gerardo Legaspi stated during the launch that an initial 130 beds were allotted for confirmed COVID-19 patients. With the help of private and government organizations, six wards were redesigned within one week for the needs of the patients. He thanked D.M. Consunji Inc. and Architect Dan Lichauco for retrofitting two wards despite the hospital’s tight deadline.

In a project dubbed “Alay sa Sambayanang Pilipino sa Panahon ng Agam-Agam”, the UP Symphony Orchestra (UPSO), led by Maestro Josefino “Chino” Toledo, brought together various artists and UP choirs to perform “Maghintay Lang, Kaluluwa at Diwa,” an adaptation of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’ Finlandia (Op. 26), with lyrics from Psalm 46 translated into Filipino by Toledo, and arrangement and orchestration by the same.

Image from the UPOU website   Flexibility and compassion. These were the key takeaways in the first episode of UP Open University’s (UPOU) podcast series, “Edu-Hack: Navigating through a Turbulent Educational Landscape” on April 28. The discussion centered on answering the question, “How are Philippine Universities Responding to Disruptions in Education Brought About by COVID-19 Pandemic?”   […]

With Cebu implementing phased plans for re-opening businesses organizations and public institutions, we developed a tool whose approaches augment what we know works for such set-ups.

Covcheck’s CovidCheck is a monitoring tool built to collect health data of the personnel of business organizations and/or public institutions through daily health self-assessments. It aids in identifying risks before employees, staff, and students alike leave their homes.

Cocolife, the biggest Filipino-owned stock life insurance company, recently donated P1 million to the University of the Philippines Manila – National Institute of Health (UP-NIH) for the purchase of one Real Time- Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) machine to help step-up efforts for coronavirus testing in the country. RT-PCR Machines are used to make a minuscule amount of very distinct viral genetic material detectable, which significantly improves the timely release of COVID-19 test results in the country.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has officially announced its approval of GenAmplifyTM Corona Virus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) RT-PCR Detection Kit on its advisory dated 3 April 2020. This is the first locally-made, PCR-based COVID-19 test kit for commercial use. It was developed by Dr. Raul V. Destura and the scientists of the UP Manila National Institutes of Health (UPM-NIH), with funding from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). The testing kits will be manufactured by the Manila Health Tek, Inc.

UP Visayas (UPV) Professors Maria Elisa Baliao (Sociology), Rhodella Ibabao (Management), Hanny John Mediodia (Economics), Cristabel Parcon (Sociology), Juhn Cris Espia (Political Science), and Vicente Balinas (Statistics) have forwarded their team’s proposed exit plan to the Iloilo City government in anticipation of the eventual lifting of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).

More support has come in for the students left stranded at the University of the Philippines Cebu campus following the declaration of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) and travel ban over the City of Cebu.

According to posts in the UP Cebu Office of Student Affairs (OSA) Facebook page, stranded UP Cebu students were given relief assistance from the Department of Social Welfare and Development Region VII (DSWD-7) on Wednesday, April 22. This was first reported by Tug-ani, the official student publication of UP Cebu.