by Jojo C. Due
I have been a subscriber for a mobile phone company for more than 20 years and an internet service provider for quite a while. And I pay my bills at their service centers or stores, even now when people entering their premises are limited, no thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s no hassle. I have been doing it for quite some time now.
However, what I find funny is why these internet service providers and telecommunications companies do not offer, or simply do not have, internet in their payment centers.
Ever wondered about that?
I’m just puzzled. People need their service for school for their kids; to conduct business; keep in touch with loved ones or someone “as a friend”; order food; order something at those online selling sites; play a game; what-have-you. But they can’t have that since there is no Wi-Fi service at payments centers.
Maybe it is the service providers’ policy. But they could rethink it to make the long lines and waiting time more bearable for their clients.
Not such a bad idea. It could work.
Right?
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Kudos to the Angeles City’s home-grown billionaire Dennis Anthony H. Uy and his wife Maria Grace Y. Uy who are the sixth richest couple in Forbes Philippines’ 50 Richest List.
Everyone from Angeles City, especially those close to Dennis Uy, know the story. How he worked as a store clerk at his Lolo Johnny’s supermarket when he arrived in Angeles City more than 40 years ago and then studied at Holy Family Academy and Chevalier School (we were schoolmates and was actually a batchmate of my late brother Joselito “Jaydu” Due) and studied at the Holy Angel University.
This self-made tycoon provided the sound system during events at Chevalier School when we were in high school. Years later, he would go into the computer business with Savers Office Automation (SOA).
A few more years during the dark days of Pinatubo, he pushed through with his cable business, ACCTN, providing shows about activities around Angeles City as the city struggled through the disaster.
Later, he ventured into the telecommunications industry and established Converge ICT Solutions, the fast-growing broadband services provider in the Philippines.
His various partnerships with international companies and innate passion to serve the un-served and underserved fueled his desire to provide better services to people in, first Angeles City, then the neighboring areas, then Central Luzon, then Northern Luzon and recently, in the Visayas and soon, Mindanao.
These bold steps that include the development and improvement of infrastructure and service, undertaken amid the COVID-19 pandemic, have led to the couple eventually amassing revenues now worth US$2.8 billion.
Again, congratulations, Dennis and Grace Uy!
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And since were on the subject of telecoms, PLDT, one of the country’s major telecommunications providers, noted an increase in number of its home subscribers since the COVID-19 pandemic has spawned new uses for internet.
What was once merely for entertainment and social media has become an very important, nay, essential tool nowadays, especially with the pandemic still raging.
Owing to the pandemic, telecommunications providers like PLDT and its wireless subsidiary Smart, along with Converge and other telecommunications companies, have been helping people navigate through life through virtual meetings.
The internet is also essential for students that are now more, if not wholly, having classes online due to the still existing COVID-19 threat. The young are a particular a sector of concern since they still cannot avail of the vaccines developed against COVID-19.
The need for telecommunications will not waver even as humankind rises from the COVID-19 scourge to the new normal and further on.
But we are all hoping this will end soon.
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Point to ponder:
We fear an invisible virus but fall short of believing, and even doubting, the existence of an invisible and omnipotent God who will save us from this.
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On a final note, I would like to extend my sincere condolences to the relatives and friends of my dear friend Michele Lynn Christie who passed away on September 14; another friend Bing Alvaro who has also passed; my batchmate Rhoel Peralta; and our officemates Dhey Lacanlale and Nove Jean Yu who lost loved ones too.
May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
