DSWD Field Office Eight Director Leticia Diokno was guest today, October 13, of the Leyte provincial celebration of the Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation Week. Though the nationwide observance was set on the third week of every July, the provincial government made it worthy to have an extended celebration, if only to further advance the cause of persons with disabilities (PWDs).

Focal Person Ben Calzado of the persons with disabilities program, read the message of the DSWD regional chief who could not be around for an equally important affair. The latter’s piece was a call for everyone to make the rights true for the said sector. The following is her note :

“ Good day everyone ! I am pleased to be invited to this gathering of one our province’s wondrous partners in national development – the PWDs or Persons with Disabilities. Though my heavy schedule holds me back from my being with you today, I wish to send word to all of you, that my sincere heart is with you. Yes … the time I became the team captain of the agency was the time I became so involved with PWDs, because it was then that I started to get more acquainted with the grim realities of being a person with disability ! I saw and felt clearly the barriers faced by people with impairments. They were looked down upon; spared of their full enjoyment of their human rights and fundamental freedoms, and of their full participation in the socio – economic development of society ! Our poor persons with disabilities belonged to an island apart from the mainlaind. Their voices could not be heard because discrimination was so strong in the past, and all because of disability !

Today, the government is moving fast that PWDs will be mainstreamed with the rest of humanity. Laws and legislatures have been enacted to protect their rights, such as the Accessibility Law, Magna Carta for Persons with Disabilities, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and many more. These are decrees that are comprehensive, enough to cover all aspects of a person with disability ‘s total human development – civil, political, economic, social and cultural spheres. For persons with disabilities are human beings, so that disability must be a treated as a human rights issue, and that all efforts will lead them to earn respect and recognition in this part of society.

We have to show them respect. Their privileges ought to be granted. Even with laws, it would be nothing if we show ambivalence and indifference towards them. Making the rights real for persons with disabilities, as the theme goes, require full cooperation from all of us. In the words of the greatly-admired ex- Senator JOSE W. DIOKNO, “ Full human development is the optimal development of all that is human in all humans, the bringing to full flower of the native genius of each and of all.” I am greatly amazed and impressed by the vibrance and brilliance of persons with disabilities, and may I say now – that physical impairment can not and should never be made a reason to undermine a PWD’s capabilities and capacities to perform normally and even excellently in his or her own field.

If we are really serious at lending a hand to PWDs, first and foremost, never call them disabled persons but persons with disabilities. They are equipped with special skills and talents; they are but normal persons with certain handicaps.

I am most concerned about PWDs who live in conditions of poverty.   The Magna Carta for PWDs provides that they are entitled to a 20 percent discount privilege in business establishments as well as health care facilities. Let us seriously implement this law so the burdens of our PWDs will become a little lighter.   Let us recognize their critical need to address the negative impact of poverty, in terms of employment, access to quality education or special or non-formal education, health services, as well as auxillary social services which are necessary to restore their social functioning and participation in community affairs. We can help them in our own little ways.

They need our intensive support. Look around everywhere – the path we walk, the bus or jeep we take, the public toilet we go in, the public and private establishments we use to visit, the schools of our children, the government we are in . . . are they friendly to our PWDs? Aren’t they faced with barriers ? Whose responsibilities are these ? Let us ask ourselves, quietly and honestly – have we done much for their welfare ? The answer lies in all of us.