More livelihood opportunities eyed for city’s PWDs
TO help empower persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Dagupan City, a PWD Summit was held to educate the community on PWDs’ rights established by the “Magna Carta for Persons with Disabilities.”
The main discussion during the summit held in observance of the 36th National Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation Week (NDPRW) from July 17 to 23, focused on the discrimination suffered by PWDs in employment followed by the lack of accessibility to offices and business establishments due to unfriendly structures.
The two issues were validated earlier by the public hearing on the draft ordinance entitled “Magna Carta of Persons with Disabilities in Dagupan City” authored by Councilor Maybelyn Fernandez.
Speakers from the Commission on Human Rights, Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of Education, Alternative Learning Systems and Special Education and the Regional Federation of PWDs were on hand as resource persons during the summit.
Josephine De Vera, focal person for the PWDs in the city, underscored the relevance of the summit to the community and not only to the PWDs.
“The community must know that given the equal opportunities, we (PWDs) can be partners in nation building”, De Vera said who disclosed that there are 1, 005 PWDs in the city of which only ten to fifteen percent are either self-employed or employed.
Fernandez’s proposed ordinance includes a feature providing incentive to business establishments who employ PWDs and the creation of the PWD Affairs Office.
It also asked the government offices in the city particularly to make their offices “PWD friendly”.
Meanwhile, Mayor Belen Fernandez said the PWDs should be inspired by the life of Apolinario Mabini, who despite his physical disability earned his place in history as the brain of the Katipunan, even as she assured them of more services from the city government.
“Many organizations are coordinating with us like the Latter Day Saints who are providing wheelchairs and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) will deliver artificial legs to our PWDs with amputated legs”, said Fernandez.
PRIORITY REGISTRANTS
Meanwhile, Marino Salas, provincial election supervisor of Pangasinan, reiterated that “every day is Persons With Disability (PWD) day in Pangasinan because we give them priority,” after a special day for them was held for their voters’ validation and registration.
Salas, however, admitted that the National Registration Day for Voters with Disabilities last Sunday yielded only 46 PWD registrants which he considers as low.
“But this is because we do off-site registration in the barangays (villages) and others have already registered or validated using biometric data capture,” he said. (Hilda M. Austria, Tita Roces, PNA, CIO)
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