From village microscopists to SDG-aligned partnerships, PSFI’s model turns philanthropy into real-world outcomes.
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Show Notes:
On Mission Matters, Adam Torres interviews Sebastian Quiniones, Executive Director at Pilipinas Shell Foundation, Inc., on PSFI’s community-driven push to eliminate malaria and its broader programs in education, livelihoods, and nutrition—showcasing how strategic partnerships deliver sustainable impact.
About Pilipinas Shell Foundation, Inc
As the social arm of Shell companies in the Philippines, PSFI aspires to be the pioneer in pursuing best practice projects that responds not only to the needs of Shells worksites and host communities, but to the rest of the country.
Guided by its vision, PSFI aims to build the capacities of the disadvantaged members of Philippine society by closely working together with its partners, stakeholders and the Shell companies in contributing to the country’s sustainable development. At all times, the organization upholds the Shell core values of honesty, integrity, and respect for people.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today’s a very special episode. This episode is part of our Asia Summit series where we’re bringing you the best of those that attended the Asia Summit in Singapore.
We were over there covering the Milken Conference out there and also F1, and my next guest is Sebastian Quiniones, who is the executive director over at the Filipinos Shell Foundation Incorporated? Sebastian. Welcome to the show. Hello, Adam. Thank you very much for having me. It’s an honor. Oh man. Well, I’m excited to talk about the Filipino Shell Foundation, Inc.
And also one of the initiatives that the foundation’s been working on now for decades, which is eliminating malaria. And I understand you’re close and what, we’ll get into that and more. But before we do, I, I want to talk. Little bit about the Asia summit and your experience there.
So the Milken Institute, the Asia Summit, like, I know you were there this year. Have you been before? Like what’s the connection? how’d you learn about this? Well, this is the 12th Milton Institute, Asia Summatives there. Actually, this was my first time there. I’ve been in mine too.
Well, there we go. We’re both newbies. Okay. I love it. I mean, personally going, yes, I’ve been in the corporate roles, but I’ve been transferred over to the foundation mm-hmm. After I retired. And so. When I got into the foundation, I was also we got very active and I became the president of the League of Corporate Foundations in the Philippines.
Ah, yes. And you know, so obviously being the leader of the league and the, like, the Milken was then scouting around and trying to figure out, okay, who are there in the SA and five that they can look after, that they can invite. And so, okay. Mm-hmm. I believe my name popped up, so that was why I was invited.
I’m so glad that I was able to go there. Wow. So I love to hear this because obviously a big brand, big foundation, big mission, right? And now you going to see, you know, for the first time, boots on the ground. I know you knew who Milken all that stuff was, but you got to experience it. But in your history in corporate, I know you’ve been to hundreds of conferences, I’m sure.
what made this one so special or stick out to you? Like what made it unique? Well, the theme that they had progress with purpose collaboration amid complexity is already an eye catcher because you, they were, they hit the, the nail on the head if you could. Mm-hmm. By looking at all of the different issues that were there and the key drivers that were happening now. Mm-hmm. I really loved the parts about, obviously the philanthropy part, because we had a special sort of private meeting around that. Wow. But I also was in the other, sessions that we were focusing on things like ai and the pervasiveness and in of it coming into the systems.
I also obviously wanted to see how, what the business side was mm-hmm. With regards to grants and all the part there, and all of those things just sort of fitted in with what I was trying to, get outta the conference of the two and a half days and, mm-hmm. Well, overall it was very, very productive for me.
Yeah. I’ll give you my, little 2 cents on this one. So I’ve been covering the Beverly Hills one, the Milken Global Conference. Mm-hmm. So that’s their big, big one. I’ve been covering that now for, I think. Three, four years or so. And I’ve done maybe, I don’t know, 200 plus interviews for that.
And this is like, this is like my Super Bowl every year. I’m not joking. I love it. It’s my favorite event of the year. So for all except for all the other con if there’s another conference owner that booked me mm-hmm. And I’m supposed to go, other than your event, this is my other favorite one, right? Mm-hmm. But, and I, just, the people. Like the people and, that you get to meet and the network. Yes. And the, and the communication. And to have everybody there at one time, like, ’cause you know mm-hmm. You’re, you’re busy. Everybody’s busy, everybody’s flying. I have other things to do, but it’s kind of become this community like year over year.
And now what’s been even more even a bigger, pleasant surprise to me is I finally ventured. So this Asia Summit is the first, mm-hmm. Is the first time I’ve traveled abroad for a Milken event. And I was just like, I knew because of the brand and I knew the content would be good and everything else, but it was just such a pleasant surprise to even see some of my buddies, so to speak, from the other, the conference in Beverly Hills and the community and the people that go back and forth and just all these other things.
That opened up a whole new world of just understanding to me, and then it got me more excited. I’m like, oh, there’s one in. We were talking before this about, you know, the, one in Mexico, Ando and some other people. And I’m like, wow, I want to go check out what’s going there. I know they have one in Abu Dhabi.
I want to go check that out. Yeah. And it just makes the world, the big world, just a little bit smaller to feel like there’s a network of individuals that are vetted, that are allowed to come to the conference. Mm-hmm. And that represent, you know, that, that do good business. So I, that, that’s just my little 2 cents from my, experiences so far.
And I got already half an inch of calling cards with me on people that I blinked up. Oh, well, let’s switch it up a bit here. I wanna, talk about the Filipino Shell Foundation, Inc. And also as you mentioned, how long have you been at the head? I know you’ve mentioned this was a transition from the corporate side.
Like how long have you been working there? Well, I’ve actually been a trustee of the Filipino Shell Foundation since the mid two thousands. Mm okay. ’cause again, I was in the business side. Yeah. But I was executive director starting 2019 and I’ve because I was requested to assist in future proofing the business coming from the business itself.
So future proofing the foundation, sorry. Yeah. And making sure that we have all of the systems in place and the like, and I’ve really enjoyed my tenure in it. What, what drew you originally to, I mean, lots of things obviously with your skill set, with your contacts, with your network, what you’ve done in business, what drew you to the foundation?
Like what were what, what made you lean in to be like, yeah, this is something that I could really put my, weight behind. I. All right, I will steal your mission a minute. I love it. Let read that out. Okay. So the mission for a Filipino Shell Foundation is that wherever we are, we’re helping disadvantaged persons and their communities become resilient.
We’re foundation, the social arm of Shell in the Philippines that 43 years ago. Funded just two programs out of school youth using technical, vocational courses with an interventional called leadership Enhancement and attitudinal development. Mm, 43 years later, we’re now in six sustainable development goal thematic areas, 12 main programs, more than 10 funders.
Because of the fact that they saw our exceptional project management skills on delivery. Mm-hmm. We now have a program budget of around 19 million US dollars per year, and we’re still focused on disadvantaged persons and people groups. And for the communities, we still aim for them to be, become resilient and sustainable.
Mm-hmm. So that really resonates with me personally. In the business, you always want to chase the last dollar or the last peso in this particular case. we’re making that last dollar or peso grow into much, much more Wow. Through service. That’s absolutely amazing. And I know, speaking of service, I know that the foundation is, it focuses on many different things, but I know one of the particular things mm-hmm.
That’s been a real big focus is specifically malaria in the Philippines. And I know it’s been working on it for decades. Maybe could you go into that a little bit and like where we’re at with eliminating malaria. Okay. As a in first, in a global context, you know, in the year 2000 there were over 245 million cases of malaria and over 864,000 deaths globally.
Mm. You know, fast forward 2023, the world still records about 249 million cases. So in other words, it hasn’t actually gone. It has changed. The deaths have declined to around 600,000. So there’s been a 30% global reduction in mortality in the Philippines. During that particular point in time when Filipino Shell Foundation got into it, there were more than 60,000 cases and about hundreds and hundreds of deaths.
Mm. 1999 was the year that Pilipinas Shell Foundation partnered with the provincial government of malaria to launch our movement against malaria program. And why? Because the business at that time was going to set up an upstream facility in Palawan . Yes. Mm-hmm. So that’s one of the provinces in the Philippines.
There’re 82 provinces, by the way, in the Philippines. Mm-hmm. So. It was we started in Palawan and in this particular case, the upstream business, that was the first time that we were doing the drilling. By the way, that was my last job. I looked after that as the managing director. Oh, wow. Wow. So, but during that time, there were over, and just to have a, to set a sort of a, of a, where it started in 2003, there were over 50,000 cases that was recorded by the National Malaria Control and elimination program.
And that’s the starting point. Mm-hmm. And so. Over the years, we’ve now gone down to less than 1000 cases and zero just one death. So, wow. In other words, when the world is already just had about, you know, except kept the same number of cases and 30% reduction in mortality, in our particular case, we have already gone to 98% change.
Mm-hmm. 98% also in terms of mortality. And now of the 82 provinces, we’re now just down to one, to Palawan, and we will meet our un sustainable development goal target of having zero malaria by 2030. That is our goal. Wow. Wow. First off, that’s, that’s amazing. What an amazing thing, and again, this is, I know as business people sometimes we can, or I shouldn’t say we, I, I sometimes get focused on the numbers and, and things like that. And but when you think about these are lives, these are lives, yeah. These are families. These are like, these are, you lineages that are being affected. And if you put in that context, it’s just, it’s absolutely mind blowing.
It’s amazing. Yes, it is. What do you think, what do you think made Its, oh, go ahead. What were you gonna say? Go ahead. Mm-hmm. No, I was, I’m gonna answer your question. I think I anticipated what you’re gonna, what made you think was gonna happen. And this is a community driven approach that we, which we’ve done.
Mm-hmm. And we, by the way we really focused on training the village Microscopists, because these are the frontline folks. Mm-hmm. They’re the ones that are going to be monitoring, the remaining, you know, the cases there in the, what we call our barangays, these are the villages that we have in the Philippines.
Mm-hmm. Why we’re having a lot of difficulty now is because we’re now in the southern Palawan area where there are lots of indigenous peoples and it’s mountainous to be able to track going up, you need, you have to go by hours going crossing rivers and ravines and the like. There. You know, ha, kudos to all of our microscopists and our staff there.
Yeah. Who go around and work with them to try to eliminate these last few Yes. Mm-hmm. So that it doesn’t mm-hmm. It doesn’t come back again. by, you know, in 20 2003, we had about 344 microscopists that we had trained and equipped. And would you believe that up to now, 80% are still active? Yeah. Wow.
They’re still, it’s, it become a cause for them. Yeah. And so we, I guess when you have that much, you know, success beget success too, right? If you’re out there saving lives and you’re being, you’re successful at it. Mm-hmm. How could you not wanna do more, right. If possible. Yes. And one of the things that we were noticed by the Global Fund, so it was first run by the business and we were funding it then the Global Fund for to fight aids, tuberculosis, and malaria came in, 2006.
Mm-hmm. And they said, Hey, wait a second. Pilipinas Shell Foundation, you’re doing really well in the Palawan area. Could you do it for the rest of the country? And we go, Hmm, all right. Why not? Let’s try it out. And so we did. And since then the Global Fund has provided us over $114 million of grants.
Hmm. To be able to then eliminate the malaria throughout the whole country. And again, as I said, we’re now down to the last, so 81 out of 82 have now been recorded as having zero indigenous cases of malaria. Mm-hmm. 72 of those have been already declared malaria free by the Department of Health.
We’re still. There’s a three year requirement. It has to be three for three years, be before you’re officially declared. So 72 out of the 82 have been officially declared. Hmm. And said, just one has indigenous cases. Wow, that’s an absolutely amazing story. And sounds like they’re gonna move you when you do good work, they move you to somewhere else.
I don’t know where they’re gonna move you next, Sebastian.
I’m sorry. I had to, yeah, but it really, I mean, this is just one of those real success stories that I’m happy to bring to my audience because I feel like mm-hmm. We need to, mm-hmm. You know, talk about things like this that are happening more and also so that people can get involved. Yes. How, speaking of how do people get involved with the foundation, whether it’s re regarding the, the malaria side of like getting, supporting active otherwise or anything else that the foundation has going on in general, how do people get involved?
Well for here, they, they’ve learned how we do things in the malaria program they like, and which be because of the fact that the project management skills were very exceptional. Yeah. And by the way, the Global Fund told us that we were one of the best principal recipients in the world. Wow. So we’ve got noticed also by other funders here in the, the country and, mm-hmm.
Our programs have expanded to things like medical scholarship programs. We still do our programs on, other education programs on the technical vocational part mm-hmm. That we’re known for. Again, as I said, I was the chairman of the League of Corporate Foundations and we do quite a lot of synergies with other foundations that are there.
We have a first 1000 days program for Roots to shoots and the like, and all of those are, things that. Again, when you, when people see that you do good. Yeah. They also want to see how they can partner with you. They can contact us via our website. Mm-hmm. Philippina shell foundation.org and I’m in LinkedIn.
So again, if they just want to, you know, have a little bit more communications than just look, look me up. Also in LinkedIn. Yeah, I wanna do a little bit of a just a quick little plug. You mentioned something twice and I, I don’t know exactly what it is ’cause I’m not familiar, but you mentioned the league, the League of Foundation.
Could you explain what that is? A little bit? I’m just curious. I’ve never heard. Mm-hmm. Well, there, I’m new to it, I should say. Mm-hmm. Okay. So there’s a, we have a number of foundations here in the Philippines. Mm-hmm. And. A lot of the corporate foundations decided to group themselves into what’s called the League of Corporate Foundations.
Mm-hmm. We’re celebrating our 30th year on next year. Oh, oh, that’s amazing. Yeah. Yes. So I was the chairman for four years. I had two terms there. Mm-hmm. And we were able to, you know bring forth on quite a number of synergy programs together. And trying to highlight the fact that we are the league that is mm-hmm. Required by the government to have a CSR week every July. And so we have that week where we highlight corporate social responsibility of the various foundations for that whole week. Wow. And we have various themes every year, and we make sure that we also award.
Other foundations, the foundations within the members of the foundations with what we call the Guild Awards. Mm-hmm. So the programs that are really, that are exceptional, you know, the, the members of the foundation vote on them. Yeah. And we we get awarded. So we obviously, filipino Shell Foundation is one, quite a number of them. Mm-hmm. But all our other foundations that are the, here in the Philippines also have put forward really great programs, and quite a number of them are, are focused on various areas from finance, disaster resilience education, entrepreneurship and the like.
And, oh, I, one more plug on corporate social. Yeah. Please. So we do have A-C-S-R-I. We also teach teams, sort of the, the various groups here on how to do better in ways of monitoring and evaluation and, other ways of improving their performance. So that’s also something corporate, so the CSRI, the CSR Institute that we have.
Man, I love it. This is great. Mm-hmm. Great news and going on the 30 years. That’s amazing. Yes, happy to. And Matt, you, you might have to bring on, set up some more foundation uh, share this with your league when it goes out. Sebastian, I’m definitely interested in, focusing on some other individuals that are doing great work like yourself and other foundations out there.
’cause one, this is one of my, joys in doing what I get to do. Is highlighting the work of others that are out there doing amazing things too. So we can spread some good and, and keep the momentum going. Like it’s important that we share these stories and people know what’s going on.
So first off, I just wanna appreciate you coming on the show today and taking some time. This has really been a pleasure. Yes. Thank you so much, Adam, for having me. and for everybody else that’s listening, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet first off, hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day we bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So, again, hit that subscribe or follow button and I’ll definitely put in the, I have my team put in the show notes. The website so you can go check out Sebastian’s work and the Filipino Shell Foundation as overall as well.
And again, Sebastian, appreciate you coming on. Yes, thank you very much Adam. Thank you very much.
