Electric bills are now available in Braille. As a special service to its visually- impaired customers, Visayan Electric Co. Inc. is pioneering the printing and distribution of electric bills using the Braille system. VECO is the only utility in the country that has adopted this system.

In the project’s launching last October 13, Jimmy Aboitiz, VECO SVP and COO, said he will encourage other distribution companies in the Aboitiz group to follow VECO’s lead before the year ends. Aboitiz also promised Resources for the Blind (RBI), an organization for visually-impaired individuals, that he will make representations with the Philippine Electric Plant Owners Association (PEPOA) to push this service to its members.

The Braille system is widely used by blind people to read and write. It was devised in 1821 by the Frenchman, Louis Braille. It is done by passing the fingers over characters made up of an  arrangement of one to six embossed points.

VECO took on this project in recognition of the need to reach out to this sector by increasing the availability of information for them. One way of doing this is to print such information and materials in Braille. It has partnered with RBI, an organization devoted to removing the obstacles that prevent visually-impaired Filipinos from reaching their full potential. If you know of someone who may benefit from a bill in braille, please call VECO at 230-VECO (8326) or e-mail us at info@veco.com.ph.

The VECO bills in Braille project was conceptualized by Sebastian Lacson, VECO’s VP for Administration and Customer Services Group. Lacson said that: “This is a big thing for us to be able to meet the needs of a certain sector in society. Some blind consumers do not get their bills or have difficulty understanding it.”