Among the truly handicapped
WHEN Lily (not her real name) broke her leg in a vehicular accident, she found out how truly friendly society is to persons with disabilities (PWDs).
The call center technical support representative had to commute five days a week from her residence in Taguig to Ortigas City. Facing expensive rehabilitation not covered by her health maintenance organization, Lily ruled out expensive taxi rides for commuting by UV Express and the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT).
The initial struggle nearly made her give up her job. Only by steeling herself to be inured to other people’s treatment was Lily able to get through two, sometimes three hours, on the road to go to and fro her office.
Second-class citizens
Slight and fine-boned, Lily eventually learned to maneuver her wheelchair-bound self in and out of MRT elevators and trains. Some people would help but others only looked on. During rush hours, many people would not hide their expressions of irritation that she would be stationed near the sliding doors of the trains to facilitate her entrance and exit.
There was a limit to people’s patience to be “kind” to PWDs, she realized. Consideration for the disabled was first to go when personal comfort or convenience was compromised.
But even some members of the police and public servants looked the other way when she was sure they did not miss her consternation over the absence of a ramp or PWD-friendly access to a building.
Even establishments that had toilets prominently labeled as exclusive for PWDs rarely assigned an attendant to help those who were alone. Some doors were too heavy to pull back if one were wheelchair-bound.
These obstacles to public mobility and access are not even the real challenges faced by the disabled. For Lily, it is people’s condescension and tolerance of PWDs as good enough only for token gestures of assistance.
Inequalities
“Everyone has a handicap hidden inside,” Provincial Attorney Orvi Ortega was quoted as saying in Oscar Pineda’s report in Sun.Star Cebu last July 8.
Ortega spoke during the Provincial Government’s ceremonies to open PWD Month in the Province. This was institutionalized through a resolution passed by the Provincial Board last February 2011.
Ortega’s comment may be interpreted as a call for greater sympathy, even empathy, among the fully able for the disabled.
Much is still required of society to correct “the glaring inequalities experienced by persons with disabilities,” urged United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, according to the official UN website (www.un.org/en/globalissues/ disabilities).
“UN Enable” is the program seeking to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. “UN Enable” marks the shift from the movement that views PWDs as “objects of charity, medical treatment and social protection, towards viewing them as subjects having rights.”
According to the UN, the disabled are the “world’s largest minority,” with 10 percent of the world’s population, roughly 650 million people, living with a disability. Eighty percent of PWDs live in developing countries.
Their marginalization keeps many PWDs poor and vulnerable to abuse. The UN estimates that 90 percent of children in developing countries do not go to school. Female PWDs are “more likely to be victims of violence or rape, and are less likely to obtain police intervention, legal protection or preventive care,” notes the UN.
A survey conducted in the US in 2004 found that only 35 percent of working-age PWDs were employed, compared to 78 percent of those without disabilities. A 2003 Rutgers University study revealed that a third of employers perceived that PWDs cannot perform their jobs effectively.
The second most common reason for not offering PWDs jobs was employers’ resistance to installing costly facilities for PWDs.
Buckling under the stress of daily commuting, Lily resigned from the call center and works now as an online writer. Education and work are needed for PWDs’ dignity and independence; ironically, she says, these are still so difficult to attain.