By Annabel Consuelo Petinglay/PNA
SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique – Around PHP1 million worth of assistive devices will be distributed to target recipients by the Provincial Disability Affairs Office (PDAO) on December 19 at the EBJ Freedom Grandstand here, an official said Monday.
In an interview, Paolo Castillo, PDAO head, said the distribution will be held during the Binirayan Festival 2nd Provincial Sectoral Congress spearheaded by the Antique Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office (PSWDO).
“We have five wheelchairs to be distributed in each municipality,” he said.
He said the Municipal Social Welfare and Development Officers of the 18 towns in the province will come up with a list of persons with disability (PWDs) who would be recipients of the assistive devices.
He said aside from the wheelchairs, the PDAO has crutches, canes and other assistive devices that would be given out, especially to those indigent PWDS.
Meanwhile, Castillo said they are encouraging the local government units to come up with their own Municipal Disability Affairs Office (MDAO) so that there would be an office that could take care of the needs of PWDs in their respective towns.
“As of now, there are only five towns (San Jose de Buenavista, Sibalom, Belison, Bugasong, Culasi) that have their own Municipal Disability Affairs Office,” he said.
“Since September this year, we had been conducting advocacy among the LGUs for their compliance with the Accessibility Law,” he said.
During the advocacy campaign LGUs were encouraged to establish their MDAO that will take care of the PWDs who are considered as the vulnerable sector of society.
In the province based on the PDAO registry, there are 8,542 PWDs, who mostly have orthopedic problems.
