Veco pioneers billing system for the blind

Boosting its capacity to serve more literate and educated visually impaired customers in the future, the Visayan Electric Company (VECO) pioneers the implementation of providing electric bills in Braille.

VECO has partnered with the Resources for the Blind Inc. (RBI) in this pioneer customer-service endeavor, highly recognizing the visually impaired community as part of the "normal" society.

RBI is an organization devoted to removing the obstacles that prevent visually-impaired Filipinos from reaching their full potential. The agency in Cebu is largely funded by a Netherlands based funding institution.

Braille is a series of raised dots that can be read with the fingers by people who are blind or whose eyesight is not sufficient for reading printed material. It is a code by which languages such as English or Spanish may be written and read.

Although VECO has initially attracted seven registered clients who are bound to benefit the system in their bill next month, this is expected to grow in number in the next few years, as Braille literacy among visually-impaired individuals has grown over the years.

"This is a big thing for us, considering that the needs of other sectors in the society are being met. Some blind electric consumers do not get their bills or they have difficulty in understanding it," said Sebastian R. Lacson, VECO vice president for administration and customer services group.

With this initiative, VECO hopes that other service utility companies will be able to duplicate this system to give opportunity for the blind community to be recognized and be part of the normal consumer spectrum.

VECO is closely working with RBI to translate the bill in Braille form to be attached to the actual monthly bill of VECO.

At this point, VECO and RBI still have to establish a database to quantify the number of visually-impaired clients that are able to read their bills in Braille.

"This [program] will actually benefit the younger generation visually- impaired community as a growing number of them are already educated," RBI Cebu branch director Rustica Padasas.

In the Visayas, there are a total of 503 blind students who are enrolled in different SPED schools, 47 percent of whom came from Central Visayas.

Record showed that in 1992, there were a total of 42,000 visually impaired school-age children enrolled in SPED schools around the country, and is able to read and write through Braille system.

"We don't want people to pity us. The younger generation of visually impaired are being prepared 'na hindi sila maging pabigat sa society'," said Padasas.

VECO is also trying to set up a system, wherein distribution and payment of the electric bills for the blind clients will be made easier, Lacson added. —Ehda M. Dagooc