The Philippines still has no central database for persons with disabilities (PWDs), as indicated in yesterday’s hearing of the Senate Committee on Social Justice, Welfare, and Rural Development.
Committee chairperson Sen. Imee Marcos earlier questioned the National Council on Disability Affairs (NCDA) on the number of registered PWD in the country.
Atty. Rhealeth Krizelle Ramos of NCDA said the country has about 670,000 registered PWDs in a national database handled by the Department of Health.
Marcos said “that’s a very small number 670,000 lang. We all know that the number of our PWDs is more than that.”
NCDA Deputy Executive Director Mateo Lee Jr. noted that based on the Philippine Statistics Authority, PWDs in the Philipines number about 1.44 million
Marcos said everybody is in the process of developing a central database for PWD, but “we have none so far.”
Lee said there is still no exact number of PWDs.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said their number is similar to the DOH.
Because of this, Marcos sought to hasten the registration of PWDs, which according to the law, should be done by the NCDA.
In also admitting the discrepancy in the number of registered PWDs, Ramos said this is due to the fact that offloading data to national database is not done in real time as of the moment.
She said there are stiill forms from the Local Government Unit where some PWD filed their application.
The NCDA should make the central database, Marcos said.
Ramos said the NCDA is committed to act on this and promised to give a list of all registered PWDs by December.
With regards to the proposed monthly pension for Indigent Persons with Disability, representatives from the DBM, NEDA, and DOF admitted their hands are tied to support this due to limited funds although they admire its intention. They said there are programs and laws for PWDs