LGUs ‘top violators’ of PWD laws: group

AS THE country celebrates the 33rd National Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation (NDPR) Week this week, persons with disabilities (PWD) in Cebu find little to celebrate, saying much still has to be done to improve the accessibility of public places to PWDs and remove the discrimination that PWDs face in society.

They also say laws intended to help PWDs have not been strictly implemented.

Republic Act 9442 provides Filipino citizens who are PWDs with a 20 percent discount on medicines and medical and dental services, fares for domestic air and sea travel, and services in hotels, restaurants, and recreation and amusement centers, among other privileges.

But Jovencio “Nonoy” Concha III, founder and president of the PWDs Advocating for Rights and Empowerment, told Sun.Star Cebu that some stores don’t give the discount, claiming that unlike the 20 percent senior citizens’ discount, there is no item for the PWD discount in their cash registers.

In some cases, Concha said, stores give PWDs the discount and put it under the item for the senior citizen’s discount, but this creates problems of documentation for the stores because if it is a senior citizen’s discount, they will have to indicate the age of the senior citizen.

Discount

Joy Lam, head of the Differently Abled of Barangay Inayawan Association, welcomed the discount but said that when the 12 percent value-added tax is applied on the bill, this effectively reduces the PWD discount to just eight percent.

Shalaine Lucero, chief of the operations division of the Department of Social Welfare and Development 7, said those who are not given the discounts can complain to the Persons with Disability Affairs Office (PDAO) or the focal person on PWDs in their local government unit (LGU).

“That person (PWD) can also go directly to the fiscal’s office if he is interested in filing a case,” she said.

To avail themselves of the discounts, PWDs must present an identification card (ID) issued by the city or municipal mayor or the barangay captain of the place where they reside.

But Concha said some LGUs in Cebu have not even started issuing the IDs, “especially if there is no existing PWD organization in their municipality.”

“In Carcar, it took four years for them to start giving IDs,” he said.

PWDs had descended from the mountains and far-flung areas to have their disabilities certified by a doctor, only to find that no doctor had been made available, he said.

Many steps

For years, Adela Avila-Kono, vice-chairperson of the Accessibility Monitoring Committee, a shared committee under the Regional Council for Disability Affairs 7 and the Organization of Rehabilitation Agencies, did not get the ID either, but for a different reason.

“The barangay (hall) was not PWD-friendly. There were many steps, and the steps were high. You would need to call many people to lift you over the steps. I didn’t bother,” she said.

Kono, who uses a wheelchair, called LGUs the “number one violators of the Accessibility Law.”

Approved in 1983, Batas Pambansa 344 or the Accessibility Law requires certain buildings, institutions, establishments and public utilities to install facilities and other devices to enhance the mobility of PWDs. These include sidewalks, ramps, railings, and restrooms made to specifications that aid PWDs.

The DSWD’s Lucero said some LGUs have done much to help PWDs.

She said Talisay City has a rubberized ramp that goes around the whole City Hall.

“They have a PDAO, one of the first to have a PDAO (or a focal person on PWDs), including Cebu City, and Tagbilaran (city) and San Isidro (town) in Bohol,” she added.

Right infrastructure

Kono said PWDs in other countries are empowered because the right infrastructure aids their mobility. But in the Philippines, the attitude of people towards PWDs hampers their empowerment.

Concha said some people say, “Why put a ramp when no PWD comes here?”

When he goes around town to do errands, he said it is also common for people to tell him, “‘Nganong ikaw pa man ang ni-ari?’ (Why did you come here yourself?) There’s a presumption that PWDs should stay at home.”

Even in medical institutions that are supposed to understand the plight of PWDs, there is discrimination.

Concha relates having his attention called by the head guard of a tertiary hospital in Cebu City for driving his battery-operated wheelchair in the hospital on a visit to a patient.

“Basig makaligis kuno ko,” he said. (The guard said I might hit someone with it.)

No wheels allowed

Kono also had the indignity of being made to get out of a bakeshop in a mall in Cebu City by a guard who told her “no wheels allowed.”

Only after she made a fuss about it did the establishment clarify that it was in fact baby strollers that were not allowed inside, she said.

Under the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons, PWDs have the same rights as other people to live freely and independently, and so the government shall give full support to measures that promote their integration into mainstream society.

Without the right infrastructure that allows PWDs to move around on their own, Kono said: “Mosamot ang discrimination. Alsahon man mo. Samok man mo,” she said.

(Discrimination will increase. People will say, “you need to be carried, so you are a nuisance.”)

Kono warned, however, that while the Accessibility Law was well intentioned, it was crafted “when PWDs were not yet empowered” and so it has a lot of deficiencies.

She counted 20 issues in the law.

“The toilets alone, di mopasar (don’t meet the standards),” she said, specifically citing the placement of the grab bars on the wrong wall of the restroom.

To amend the law, she is proposing the use of universal standards culled from best practices in the most barrier-free environments in developed countries. –Cherry T. Lim, Sun Star