EXPOSE barriers against accessibility.

The veneer of tolerance shown for persons with disability was exposed in the recent discrimination of a child and his mother, who were first reprimanded by pool staff and then shamed online by Plantation Bay Resort and Spa “resident shareholder” Manny Gonzalez.

In her Dec. 6 post on Facebook, Mai Pages wrote that she was asked by lifeguards at the Lapu-Lapu City resort to keep her son Fin, who has autism, from shouting while swimming in the pool, in keeping with resort policies.

She shared the same essay after rating the resort one out of five stars on the website Tripadvisor. In his Dec. 7 response on the site, Gonzalez attributed the child’s shouting to “lack of discipline” and “parental neglect,” as well as questioned the diagnosis of autism.

Following strong disapprobation from citizens, the resort owner posted a public apology on Dec. 8, admitting he “deeply regret(s) leaving the impression that we are not supportive of the community of parents with children who have special needs”.

Batas Pambansa Bilang 344, or the Accessibility Law, mandates the creation of a “barrier-free environment” to enable persons with disability to have free and safe access to public and private establishments and buildings.

Accessibility often refers to infrastructure improvements or modifications that physically ensure ease and safety of entry, movement and egress.

The Dec. 6 incident at Plantation Bay Resort and Spa reifies the equally essential issue of access barriers created by lack of understanding, ignorance, bias and insensitivity that alienate persons with special needs.

In past centuries, to be “different” was to be not just marginalized or withdrawn from society but punished. For over 4,000 years, hysteria was viewed as a malady that exclusively afflicted females. Until science caught up, the treatment of hysteria was essentially “demonological,” involving herbs, sexual intercourse/abstinence, purification with fire and all forms of counter-sorcery.

To excuse these excesses as even more hysterical than the disease of hysteria these were supposed to treat is to forget the women who were humiliated, diminished, destroyed and killed from a lack of humanity, knowledge and compassion.

Republic Act 7277, or the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons, mandates the policy of mainstreaming that supports the “rehabilitation, self-development and self-reliance, ... and integration” of persons with disability in society.

Ensuring that procedures and staff are in accordance with the law prohibiting discrimination of persons with disability, Plantation Bay Resort and Spa and other stakeholders in the tourism industry should conduct awareness and sensitivity trainings for all stakeholders, from shareholders to employees, to understand and appropriately respond to the complex needs of guests with disability.

The record of zero child deaths for the past 25 years of Plantation Bay Resort and Spa is impressive, all the more if this extends to inclusiveness for persons of disability and families with special needs.

The most damaging wounds are invisible, created by discrimination, even if ignorant and unintended. As Pages posted on Facebook and in her Tripadvisor review, when she was unable to hush Fin after the lifeguards’ admonition, she covered her son’s mouth, only to remove the offending hand, realizing that: “This isn’t right at all!”

To force a mother to commit the momentary curtailment of her child’s self-expression is to wound and scar the very person who, by nature and desire, is wired to protect and nurture her own blood.

Civic duty in fulfilling the legal mandate of mainstreaming persons with disability, as well as self-reflection on the genuine nature of the corporate hospitality offered to all persons, including those with special needs, must inform and steer stakeholders seeking to reinvigorate the tourism and hospitality industry.