By DARLENE CAY
EFFORTS of persons with disabilities and advocates in promoting the right of PWDs to suffrage went to waste in last week’s midterm elections, no thanks to the Commission on Elections, the executive director of the National Council on Disability Affairs (NCDA) said.
In a strongly worded and emotional letter which she said she was writing as a PWD and not a government official, NCDA’s Carmen Zubiaga took issue with Comelec’s decision to designate only two only pilot Accessible Polling Places (APPs) for PWDs out of the country’s 36,778 polling centers for this year’s elections. Both APPs were in Dasmariñas, Cavite.
The NCDA executive director, who uses a wheelchair, called the move “a slap on the dignity” of voters with disabilities and said the Comelec failed to consult the PWD sector and NCDA on the matter.