My dear colleagues:
As I write to you at this very moment, we have colleagues out on the streets peddling chicken to generate cash. This is critical to sustain our operations. This is crucial to our survival.
Every single day they line up to clear every permit and every checkpoint. And they often have to hustle their way through with patient, persistent explaining and coaxing, that something as basic as feeds are part of the food chain and should be allowed to pass.
Most of them didn’t have to do it. It is not in their job description. But they took to the streets to sell chicken, anyway, and with full knowledge of the personal risks to themselves of contracting the virus.
I never imagined I will ever ask this kind of sacrifice of anyone and I will never demand it of anyone of you, ever. But no one ever imagined too, that we will also have to hazard some of the most draconian measures ever undertaken by any government to meet a national emergency in peacetime.
Every day since the enhanced community quarantine started I grapple with many fears – that live chickens in our farms do not eat, and that chicken in our processing plants could not be dressed, because feeds and personnel are getting stuck at some checkpoint, somewhere.
What keeps me awake at night is the safety of our people during the crisis, and making sure that they still have a business to return to, after. Our security and well-being, and that of our families, require that we win on both fronts.
The last few days I have seen for myself boundless faith, uncommon courage and sterling commitment in the men and women of our ranks who goes out to the streets daily and beyond the call of duty, to sell chicken.
It is because of these that I am growing in confidence that we shall survive, and our future more secure. And never in our company are so many benefiting so much from the sacrifices of so few than in these days of crisis.
A great debt of gratitude is owed all of you. It will not only be remembered. It will be repaid many times over.
Mabuhay kayong lahat!
Ronald Mascariñas
BAVI President
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