By DARLENE CAY
THE measures taken by the Commission on Elections to make voting this year more accessible to people with disabilities are just the initial steps of a challenging endeavor and should not be seen as something that would immediately remove the PWDs’ discomfort during elections.
Election Commissioner Grace Padaca made these remarks in response to criticisms that the May 13 elections were not as friendly to PWDs as many have expected after the poll body itself took pains to craft resolutions for this intention.
“Because these initial steps have been taken just these last few years, let us not think that there will be no PWD who will experience difficulties when voting,” said Padaca, herself a PWD, in a post in her Facebook account.
Her post came in the wake of an open letter written by National Council on Disability Affairs executive director Carmen Zubiaga scoring Comelec for wasting the efforts of PWDs and their advocates to promote the PWDs’ right to suffrage after the poll body designated only two Accessible Polling Places (APPs) in pilot areas in Cavite out of the thousands of precincts nationwide.
