DATA presented during a recent workshop in Pasay City attended by trade officials revealed that 15 percent or one billion of the world’s population are PWDs and 80 percent are in the working group.
According to United Nation Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), about 650 million men, women and children in Asia and the Pacific have some form of disabilities.
Based on the Philippine Statistics Authority survey of 2010, about 1.4 million or 1.52 percent of the total population in 2010 are PWDs with more male recorded at over fifty percent.
As discussed and outlined following the 2012 Incheon Strategy - Towards Inclusive, Barrier Free and Rights based Society for PWDs, the participants mostly from the different bureaus of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) identified several goals to “make the right real” that can reduce poverty and enhance work and employment prospects.
The strategy includes the enhanced access to the physical environment, public transportation, information and communication including gender equality and women empowerment.
The DTI, together with agencies are expected to develop and implement marketing promotion and product development and to come up with a database of PWD organizations and directory of PWD products and services.
All government offices, national and local, are likewise enjoined to reserve a display space for PWD products and services in their respective offices upon request and where appropriate.
In support of the Magna Carta for PWDs or RA 7277, the DTI came up PWD Economic Empowerment Framework which identifies three levels of assistance for the economic empowerment of persons with disabilities.
These are programs on enterprise level assistance, advocacy and communications and enabling environment that includes enforcement of existing policies such as the law on accessibility.
Of the existing programs of DTI, the Shared Services Facility (SSF) topped the list of services rendered with 3,222 registered PWDs. The second most availed service as recorded in the DTI national chart shows 2,321 PWDs who availed the training programs under the SME Roving Academy (SMERA) which is a continuous learning program for the development of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to learn from and contribute to the domestic and international markets. Once trained and capable of engaging in an economic activity such as entrepreneurship, DTI can further provide business advisory, mentoring services, product development and to enable PWDs to improve their operations and enhance their organizational sustainability.
The consumer advocacy and related services concerning disabled and senior citizens will be more enhanced with PWD sensitivity trainings scheduled with the National Council on Disability Affairs office. The joint DTI-DA-DOE Administrative Order No. 17-01 Series of 2017 widened the coverage of basic necessities to include noodles, water in bottles and containers, and LPG.
Since Philippine law promotes equal opportunity for employment mandating that at least one percent of all positions in all government agencies, offices or corporal ions shall be reserved for persons with disability, the DTI as of March 2017 reports that there are eleven PWD employees from DTI Head Office, Regional Offices and Attached Agencies.
This is also in conformity to the Magna Carta for PWDs that no persons with disability shall be denied access to opportunities for suitable employment and that qualified employees with disability can be accorded with the same privileges, benefits as that a qualified able bodied person. (PR)