MANILA, Philippines – Government agencies have been providing limited jobs to persons with disabilities (PWD) despite existing laws mandating them to allocate five percent of all casual, emergency and contractual positions for PWDs, according to various non-government organizations.
Johnny Lantion, general manager of the National Federation of Cooperatives of Persons with Disabilities (NFCPWD), said only one percent of about one million “employable” PWDs are working.
Lantion said Republic Act 7277 or the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons states that “five percent of all casual, emergency and contractual positions in the Departments of Social Welfare and Development; Health; Education; and other government agencies, offices or corporations engaged in social development shall be reserved for disabled persons.”
Joy Garcia, chief operations officer of the Tahanang Walang Hagdanan Inc., lamented that the government is not “strongly” implementing the law, especially in providing equal employment rights to PWDs.
A group of women with disabilities in the Philippines also claimed that the government is the no. 1 violator of the law.
NOVA Foundation, Inc. president Manuel Agcaoili said that the “employers in the Philippines still focus on the person’s disabilities.”
“I think we should try, with the help of media, to make employers understand that they should not look at their disabilities,” he said.
Agcaoili said they have been providing free skills training for PWDs and some of them have been employed as medical transcriptionists.
“We have pilot-tested a program to provide an online training for orthopedically-impaired individuals and of the 25 we have initially trained, 14 are now employed as transcriptionists,” he said.
He said most visually impaired individuals, particularly those who graduated from high school, have the necessary qualifications to be employed as call center agents.
Kosei Saito, chairman of the Workability International Asia, said that in Japan there should be one PWD in every 56 employees.
Saito said any company who violates this faces a fine of ¥50,000. –- Helen Flores and Evelyn Macairan, Philippine Star
It’s women’s month!
“Support women every day of the year!”
Invoke Article 33 of the ILO constitution
against the military junta in Myanmar to carry out the 2021 ILO Commission of Inquiry recommendations against serious violations of Forced Labour and Freedom of Association protocols.
Accept National Unity Government
(NUG) of Myanmar.
Reject Military!
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Monthly Observances:
Women’s Role in History Month
Weekly Observances:
Week 1: Environmental Week
Women’s Week
Week 3: Philippine Industry and Made-in-the-Philippines
Products Week
Last Week: Protection and Gender-Fair Treatment
of the Girl Child Week
Daily Observances:
March 8: Women’s Rights and
International Peace Day;
National Women’s Day
Mar 4— Employee Appreciation Day
Mar 15 — World Consumer Rights Day
Mar 18 — Global Recycling Day
Mar 21 — International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
Mar 23 — International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims
Mar 25 — International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Mar 27 — Earth Hour
