VICE President Jejomar Binay on Tuesday vowed to turn his attention to the millions of people with disability who, he said, were being neglected by the government.
Binay has just left for the United Arab Emirates to meet the Filipino communities in Abu Dhabi and Dubai to listen to their concerns and to see how his office could help them.
He said it had been six years since the government ratified and implemented the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disability, but nothing seemed to have changed.
“Many of our physical structures, private or public, require more thoughtful design in order to accommodate the needs of PWDs,” Binay said.
“Some of the classic examples are the restrooms with proper access and ramps for people on wheelchairs. Still, a lot of work needs to be done.”
Binay said there were problems that still needed to be solved to make PWDs live more normal lives, problems like discrimination and aversion from people who knew little about their condition.
“They face an unsolicited and even a misguided sense of pity from strangers as if their conditions were a fatal sentence,” Binay said.
He said many employers were shunning PWDs because they wanted to avoid spending money to make their facilities access-friendly to them.
“These walls shut out PWDs from their right to pursue a dignified and productive life,” Binay said.
“As a democracy and as a God-fearing nation, we cannot permit such obstacles to continue to exclude the differently abled.”