By MELISSA LUZ LOPEZ
OF the 36,778 polling centers in the country, only two—both in Dasmariñas City in Cavite—will have designated polling places for persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Monday’s elections.
And only 17 voting centers will have two sign language interpreters each to assist PWD voters registered there.
Salawag Elementary School and Area E Elementary School in Cavite have been chosen by the Commission on Elections as pilot “accessible polling places” (APPs) owing to the big number of PWD voters registered in each polling center, Commissioner Grace Padaca said in a phone interview Wednesday.
With 183 and 187 registered voters with disabilities, the two polling centers have the most number of PWD voters in a polling precinct, said Padaca, who chairs the poll body’s Committee on PWD Voting.
Comelec records show 362,113 of this election’s 52,014,648 voters are PWDs, an increase from about 300,000 PWD voters registered in 2010.
