PWDs: PARTNERS IN NATION BUILDING

Persons with disabilities in the Philippines are our partners in nation-building, and I
have issued all those things I issued because I believe that you have… You should have full
access both to educational opportunities and economic empowerment. And I would like to
use this opportunity to congratulate the Philippine Council of Cheshire Homes for the
Disabled for organizing this conference.

For our physically and mentally challenged men, women, and children, you are an
instrument of human dignity and self-sufficiency in a caring environment. And I would like to
take this opportunity also to thank and commend the many organizations and institutions
caring for persons with disabilities that I came across when I was secretary of social welfare
and development.

The concerns of persons with disabilities have to be addressed not only by their own
families but by the whole community as well. Disabled people are disproportionately found
among the poorest of the poor in all parts of the world, and the disabled tend to be
chronically poor. That’s a very sad vicious cycle. Which is one reason why I declared the
period 2003 to 2012 to be the Philippine Decade for Persons with Disabilities, so that we can
use that time, a whole decade, not only to work on immediate relief for persons with
disabilities but also for their longer-term empowerment. The Medium-Term Philippine
Development Plan for 2004 to 2010 calls for expanded capacity-building programs for
persons with disabilities.

But I also told her that if we’re going to care about the more vulnerable sectors of our
society, we work on strengthening the five fingers: the children, the most disadvantaged
among children including street children, orphans, and so on. And then the youth, the most
disadvantaged among the youth, out-of-school youth and also the youths that are vulnerable
to drugs and so on. And then the disadvantaged among women, meaning the battered
women or those women who’ve ended up in socially undesirable occupations and so on. And
then the persons with disabilities and the older persons. The more disadvantage of the older
persons.

So we have those two things: the call centers scholarships and the job fairs that we
would like to dedicate, especially to our persons with disabilities. And this is one of the things
that Espie Cabral in the DSWD can work out together with other opportunities before she
gets very busy with the calamities once the rainy season comes over. So the month of May is
the month for labor, but it should also be the month of greater economic power for our
persons with disabilities.

Source: Macapagal-Arroyo, G. (2006). Presidential Museum and Library.

https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/2006/05/04/speech-of-president-arroyo-on-pwds-as-partners-in-nation
building/