PIGEON PHILIPPINES recently announced its support for OPERATION
SMILE PHILIPPINES, a non-profit organization that specializes in expert comprehensive cleft
care. This collaboration between Pigeon, a global expert in mother and baby care, and
Operation Smile, a global charity organization for children’s needs, has already begun in several
neighboring Asian countries.
Ms. Cathy Que, Division Marketing Manager for Infant Products of Richwell Phils. Inc., the
country’s distributor of the Pigeon brand, formally handed over donations to Operation Smile
Philippines’ Executive Director Mr. Emiliano Romano and Operation Smile Regional Director for
Philippines Mr. Kevin Thor at their Makati headquarters.
“Operation Smile Philippines assists those with cleft lip and palate, particularly those with
limited or no financial resources to pay for surgery. They also have nutritional monitoring
programs because it’s necessary for babies to be healthy before an operation, and that’s where
Pigeon comes in because Pigeon cares for babies worldwide,” Cathy explains. She also
mentioned that Pigeon will be celebrating its 65th global anniversary in August, and that this
collaboration with Operation Smile Philippines is just one of the perfect ways for the brand to
show its continued support to Filipino mothers and babies in need.
According to Operation Smile Philippines statistics, one child is born with a cleft every three
minutes, and one out of every 500 Filipino babies has a cleft condition. That is why the
organization is committed to providing comprehensive cleft care to children and adults, allowing
them to live happier and healthier lives.
“Surgery accounts for only about 10% to 20% of everything we do in Operation Smile. Another
is nutritional support, which is why this collaboration with Pigeon would be extremely beneficial
to us. The second would be dental, which could be a regular dental extraction or, if an adult is
unable to receive open palate surgery, we do what we call an obturator, which is a prosthetic
that we put inside the mouth just to temporarily close the palate,” Emiliano explains.
He mentions that Operation Smile also offers speech therapy and psychosocial support to
people with cleft palates and their families due to the risk of bullying in the community.

A baby with a cleft lip can be operated on at six months, and a one-year-old can have cleft
palate surgery. “At Operation Smile, we’re really focused on access to safe surgery. That’s why
we say six months because that’s what we know that we can operate safely, that’s the global
medical standards that we’ve established worldwide. That’s why we do lip and palate
separately. When they’re getting older, we have a priority system for our patients so once they get about the age of 10 or 12, that’s when we start to do a second evaluation depending on
their condition since the variations impact the safety of it…Other alterations that would
support their speech is the primary thing for that case for older patients. Ultimately, we’re
trying to reach patients as young as possible because they are lower risk with surgical care,”
says Kevin.
Pigeon Philippines’ support meant a lot to Operation Smile Philippines because it would greatly
improve the nutritional aspect of their comprehensive cleft care. Pigeon will not only provide
tools to assist in the administration of proper nutrition to babies with cleft conditions, but it will
also reduce patient rejection for surgery. “When we look at the patient’s malnourishment in the
initial screening, we can now provide products where moms can administer proper feeding
sessions, giving their child proper nutrients so that when they return, they can receive surgery,”
says Emiliano.
Both Operation Smile Philippines and Pigeon Philippines are considering more initiatives like
this in the future to benefit both Filipino mothers and babies.
To learn more about Pigeon Philippines, go to https://pigeon.com.ph/, and to learn more about
Operation Smile Philippines and their initiatives, go to https://operationsmile.org.ph/.