Businesses urged to open doors to PWDs

President Arroyo called on the business sector yesterday to open their doors to persons with disabilities (PWDs) as she announced a P5-million call center scholarship program for the vulnerable sector of society, especially the wheelchair-bound.

In a speech before the Multi-Stakeholder Conference on the State of Philippine Disability Movement and Challenges, the President said PWDs must also benefit from the boom in tourism and information technology sectors.

She also ordered newly-installed Presidential Management Staff chief Arthur Yap to organize a jobs fair exclusively for PWDs.

"Disabled people are among the poorest of the poor in all parts of the world and the disabled can be chronically poor… that is the sad vicious cycle of disability and poverty which must be broken," she said.

The P5 million is 10 percent of the P500 million scholarship fund set up for jobseekers who want to enter call center and business process outsourcing industries.

"PWDs in the Philippines are our partners in nation-building and they must have full access both to education and economic empowerment," the President said.

The Chief Executive directed Social Welfare and Development Secretary Esperanza Cabral to coordinate with the Technology and Skills Development Authority to implement the call center scholarship.

The scholarship program and the jobs fair will enable PWDs to avail themselves of the opportunities for education and economic empowerment generated by the advances in the tourism industry and information technology sectors.

She said that the boom in the tourism and information technology sectors would give greater opportunities for more PWDs to get jobs.

"We must focus on ability rather than on disability… You don’t have to be mobile to be a very good call center operator. You just have to have a very good command of English and if you don’t have that, we have training centers for that," the President said.

She pointed out that the concerns of PWDs must be addressed not only by their families but the whole community as well.

The government, through the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), is mandated to "take special care of the vulnerable sector of society" which includes children, the youth, women, senior citizens and PWDs.

The President said that the capability building program for PWDs was included in the government’s 2004-2010 Medium Term Philippines Development Plan (MTPDP).

The President said she had declared 2003 to 2012 as the decade for the empowerment of persons with disability so the government and stakeholders would have a decade to work on this goal.