The Blackout Zone: How SM Cares and CHED Are Turning Experience Into
Understanding
QUEZON CITY, Philippines — For
two days this July, visitors to the CHED Central Office Auditorium walked into
total darkness — by design. SM Cares partnered with the Commission on Higher
Education (CHED) to bring The Blackout Zone to the Higher Education
Development Center Building in Diliman, Quezon City, from July 21 to 22, 2026.
What the Exhibit Asks Visitors to Do
Developed under SM's Mall for
All inclusivity drive, the exhibit asks students, educators, and members of the
academic community to move through everyday tasks with no sight at all, in a
setting built to keep them safe while they do it. The goal isn't discomfort for
its own sake — it's to make the abilities, independence, and resilience of
people with visual impairments impossible to overlook.
“Sometimes, understanding
begins when we are willing to step outside what is familiar,” said Richard V.
Caluyo, Senior Assistant Vice President for SM Cares. “By bringing The Blackout
Zone closer to schools and the academic community, we hope to inspire young
people and educators to help build learning environments where every person
feels seen, respected, and included.”
Inside, participants navigated
familiar tasks by touch, sound, and scent, with someone close by to guide them
if needed. What most people carried out afterward wasn't just an anecdote — it
was a sharper sense of how people with visual impairments actually move through
the world every day.
From Mall Activation to Academic Institution
The Blackout Zone has run
before inside SM malls, where visitors tied shoes, made coffee and sandwiches,
identified candy by scent, and tried Movies for the Blind. Setting it up at
CHED instead marks a shift — it puts the experience in front of the people who
shape classrooms, institutions, and curricula, not just mall foot traffic.
SM Cares is hoping the CHED
partnership pushes that conversation further into higher education itself,
encouraging schools to build accessibility into how they already operate rather
than treating it as a one-off event.
“Our united goal with SM for
The Blackout Zone is for the program to serve as a catalyst for meaningful
action,” said CHED Commissioner Michelle A. Ong. “Empathy allows us to
dismantle the barriers that hamper inclusion and education of Filipinos with vision
impairments. Through this shared effort, we hope to further guide policies
tightly woven with real-life experiences to serve this sector better.”
Why Experience, Not Just Awareness, Matters
The exhibit's underlying point
is simple: inclusion doesn't happen just because people are aware it matters.
It takes actual practice — offering help clearly, stepping back to respect
independence, and building spaces where people of every ability can participate
fully, not just be accommodated.
The Blackout Zone is one piece
of SM Cares' broader work with persons with disabilities, which spans
accessibility, sensitivity training, inclusive employment, and community
participation.
Participants walked into the exhibit without sight. Many
walked out seeing inclusion far more clearly.
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