SEN. Lito Lapid is pushing for the passage of an enabling legislation granting regular P2,000 monthly government financial assistance to indigent persons with disability (PWDs).
As proposed in the senator’s bill, the P2,000 aid per month would be provided to indigent PWDs who cannot find regular jobs due to their disabilities and whose families are also indigents and cannot find employment nor avail of pensions that could help them tide over.
The Lapid bill aims to address PWDs it defined as those with “inabilities in body and mind, including sensory impairments, or blind and mute or hard of hearing.”
Once enacted into law, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will focus on those with ailments in mind and body, and “sensory impairment, blind and cannot hear.”
As soon as the enabling law takes effect, the DSWD and the National Council on Disability Affairs (NCDA) shall first determine who are qualified and deserving to avail and receive state assistance.
Those found to be misrepresenting or misleading authorities in registering relatives as PWDs will be made to pay a fine ranging from P25,000 to P100,000.
In filing the awaited remedial legislation, Lapid recalled it was based on the National Disability Prevalence Survey dating back to 2016 that recorded there were about 12 percent Filipinos aged 15 and above afflicted with disability, noting that 47 percent of which were listed with “moderate disability” and 23 percent with “mild disability.”
Image credits: Bernard Testa