Vice President Leni Robredo is urging employers to make good use of technology to help more people during the pandemic and ensure that “no one is left behind.”
Strict lockdowns to arrest the spread of the virus have forced many businesses to introduce technologies in their plans that would have taken much longer to adopt.
Filipinos who have unfortunately lost their main source of income are also quickly adapting into online entrepreneurship, Robredo said.
Despite this, majority of the population still experience difficulties in accessing the internet, the Vice President said during a virtual gathering of the National Conference of Employers on Monday.
She then urged employers to “continue to push the bounds of how we can harness technology to reach more of our people, especially those who need our help the most.”
“As we face the challenges brought by the virus, the imperative becomes clear: Embrace technology in a way that manifests a world where no one is left behind,” the vice president said.
“If there is anything that this pandemic has taught us, it is that we are all interconnected. The suffering of one redounds to the suffering of all; just as the progress of the last, the least, and the lost redounds to the progress of all,” Robredo added.
She also emphasized that health and the economy “do not stand in opposition to each other.”
“Best practices in the world have shown: An effective health care yields a more resilient economy. Stop the virus, and businesses open earlier, employees get to work safer, and our clientele walk into our doors sooner.”
“Health is the front-end domino; address it, and the rest of our challenges become less daunting.”
