VARIOUS organizations of persons with disabilities have urged President Benigno Aquino III to sign into law the “malasakit” bill of senatorial candidate Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez exempting PWDs from the payment of 12-percent value-added tax on certain goods and services.
During the national consultation of PWDs on House Bill 1039 of Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez last Thursday, Jocelyn Garcia, chief operating officer of the Tahanang Walang Hagdanan; lawyer Jessica Magbanua, board secretary of Alyansa ng may Kapansanang Pinoy; Cancer Alleviation Network on Care Education and Rehabilitation party-list nominee Emer Rojas; and other groups, appealed to the President’s ‘kind heart’ to benefit the three-million PWDs all over the country.
“The PWDs deserve to have this [tax] privileges as we are not given the chance to work in the mainstream. So I am asking President Aquino to give us a chance,” Garcia, also the sectoral representative of the PWD Basic Sector, said.
Magbanua, a PWD herself, stressed that the tax privileges given to senior citizens should also be given to PWDs.
“[By signing this bill] it will show that the government recognizes the plight of PWDs,” Magbanua, also a member of Consultative Advisory Group, Sub-Committee on Accessibility and Telecommunications of the National Council on Disability Affairs, said.
For his part, Rojas said “Congress has finished its ministerial duty of transmitting the PWD bill to Malacañang and we hope President Aquino will sign the measure immediately.”
Romualdez, principal author of HB 1039, said he is optimistic that the President would not veto his pet measure. Maricel V. Cruz