The UP College of Law launched on April 20, 2020 an online portal to “handle requests for legal assistance, legal advice and education, and if necessary, legal representation for issues arising from the implementation of the Enhanced Community Quarantine [ECQ].”
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.
The University of the Philippines released on 23 April 2020 implementing guidelines for proceeding with the Second Semester of Academic Year 2019-2020, which has been affected by the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) in Luzon and other parts of the country.
Like other UP campuses with chemists and chemistry laboratories, UP Diliman (UPD) has been producing alcohol sanitizers—the demand for which has significantly increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These were distributed to the UPD community and the Philippine General Hospital (PGH).
Dr. AC Yago of UPD’s Institute of Chemistry (IC) said a team from the institute had produced a total of more than 100 liters of isopropyl and ethyl alcohol from three batches from April 6 to 16.
As expected of the country’s national university, the University of the Philippines has been among the main institutions at the forefront of the battle against the coronavirus. The spirit of honor, excellence and compassion shines brightly among faculty, students, alumni, and staff across constituent universities nationwide.
There is the selfless courage of those who continue to serve daily in the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), or as PGH Director Dr. Gerardo Legaspi aptly puts it, the “people giving hope.” Despite a directive to pull out interns from medical colleges, about 214 PGH interns have volunteered to stay on duty, assisting and augmenting the hospital’s health workers. Despite the danger, PGH has accepted the appointment as one of the country’s COVID-19 referral hospitals.
