MANILA, Philippines — The League of Corporate Foundations (LCF) marked its 30th year with a message to Philippine business: corporate social responsibility (CSR) must evolve from isolated, add-on initiatives to collective action, or risk losing its credibility altogether.
Thirty years is a milestone for LCF, but the organization used the occasion to call for reckoning, not celebration. CSR as it has long been practiced — siloed, add-on, intent-driven — is no longer adequate for the scale of today’s challenges, from climate change to widening social inequality. Held July 1 to 2, 2026, at the Bayanihan Center, Pasig City, the 2026 Conference on Good Corporate Citizenship convened business, government, foundations, and development partners around a single argument: the sector must shift from awareness to action.
The conference theme Adapt. Align. Accelerate. served as a framework for how organizations can respond to today’s sustainability and development challenges. Adapt means rethinking systems that no longer serve communities or businesses. Align means tying corporate action to institutional standards, including the Sustainable Development Goals, the Philippine Development Plan, and Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) commitments such as carbon neutrality. Accelerate means scaling results through partnership and technology, at the pace the challenges demand.
“Working in silos is a luxury the country can no longer afford. Because when we do, our interventions, no matter how well-intentioned, risk becoming irrelevant,” said Shem Jose Garcia, LCF Chairperson and Executive Director of Vivant Foundation, Inc., adding that achieving impact takes more than any single business or sector can do on its own.
The conference opened with a keynote from Edgar O. Chua, Lead Independent Director of Shell Philippines Corporation, Chairman of the Makati Business Club, and former Country Chairman of Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation, who reflected on three decades of CSR evolution in the Philippines and called on organizations to meet the scale of today’s challenges. “Given the magnitude of the issues the country is currently facing, we must all accelerate the various programs that each and every one of you are planning or even defending,” he said.
Day one’s sessions covered inclusive livelihood programs for informal workers, with Maria Fe J. Avila, Division Chief for Strategy Management Division of the Department of Trade and Industry of the Philippines–Philippine Trade Training Center; disaster resilience and financial inclusion, which examined how behavioral finance can make preparedness the default for underserved communities; and a plenary on Executive Order 117 and donee institution accreditation, led by Megan Manahan, Standards Bureau Director of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
Day two opened with a session on personal and organizational commitments to living and working on a NET ZERO carbon footprint, followed by a session marking LCF’s 30th anniversary that spotlighted the mental wellbeing of social development professionals and frontliners. The program also included Accelerate NOW!, where foundations like Ayala Foundation, Manila Water Foundation, and Schneider Electric pitched active programs for partnership.
The conference closed with remarks from Jaton Zulueta, Executive Director of AHA Learning Center, who challenged delegates to move corporate citizenship beyond “doing good” toward “being good.” “This country does not need more programs. It needs more foundations willing to be changed by the people they came to serve,” he said.
Over three decades, LCF has built a network of member foundations, a track record of CSR programming, and frameworks now used across the sector. That history, LCF says, gave this gathering its credibility.
LCF positioned the 2026 Conference on Good Corporate Citizenship as a platform for corporate citizenship and extended the same challenge to every organization not yet in the room. The frameworks exist, the network is here, and the bar has been raised. The question now is whether the rest of the Philippine business will act, while CSR still has the momentum to matter.
