Bohol PWDs lobby rights, grants skills to members

WHILE the National Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation Week hobbled across the country in August, Bohol Federation of Disabled Persons (BFDP) braved the intricacies of legislature to solicit help from the government for the full implementation of laws applicable to them.

As the country's sublime paralytic, Apolinario Mabini standing as the strong pillar for the country's persons with disabilities (PWDs), local PWDs here wage a two-pronged fight. They are into empowering their sector and at the same advancing their rights. The BFDP joined the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) Committee on Social Services in a meeting August 14, in a bid to request the Provincial Government to help them implement the National Law of the Magna Carta of Disabled Persons, Batas Pambansa 344 and Proclamation 240.

Timoteo Quilas, BFDP Chairman in an interview said that the Magna Carta on Disabled Persons implements 5% employment for disabled persons, the grant of 1% annual total budget appropriation of each year, the accessibility law for disabled persons and 20% transportation discounts. Most of the problems of disabled persons here have been the lax and or non-implementation of the accessibility law, Quilas said. Recipient of a Bayaning Pilipino Award, the BFDP under Quilas has shown to the country that the often-despised sector are as productive as the able bodied.

BFDP operates massage clinics and therapeutic centers, sponsors skills trainings for members and dispenses help to empower local PWD organizations. This early, the BFDP has also asked Bohol Provincial leaders to increase its allocation, in the hope of causing the construction of a Sheltered Workshop Resource Center to serve as livelihood center for the differently-abled persons orthopedically handicapped.

The committee then told Quilas to formally request it from the governor. With the committee concerned in easing up the otherwise hard life of the differently-abled here, it recommends for the passage of a resolution. The committee wants all architects through the United Architects of the Philippines, engineers, contractors, builders, city and municipal Mayors, provincial and city planning and development officers to strictly implement the accessibility law in design and construction of buildings and establishments.

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