More than 5,800 PWDs registered in Baguio

BAGUIO CITY -- The Persons with Disabilities Affairs Office reported there are more than five thousand eight hundred registered PWDs in the city who are now enjoying services provided by concerned government agencies, the local government and the private sector.
    PDAO officer Samuel Aquino claimed that this number is expected to increase once the City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWDO) will complete the evaluation and assessment of the more than 400 PWDs coming from the various city barangays.
    He claimed that the city government is basing the number of PWDs to the number of PWD identification cards it issued to the members of the vulnerable and marginalized sector.
    He pointed out that the said number of PWDs do not actually represent the factual data of PWDs in the city because there are still families who allegedly refuse to declare their members who are actually PWDs for various reasons only known to them.
    According to him, PDAO personnel in coordination with barangay officials are doing their best to convince the families that have PWD members to come out in the open and declare them so that these PWDs will be documented and will be subsequently issued their respective identification cards for them to be granted the privileges and benefits of PWDs.
    Aquino stipulated that the city respects the decision of the families who refuse to declare they have members who are PWDs but they should realize that they are depriving their PWD member of the benefits and privileges provided by concerned government agencies, the local government and the private sector once their PWD members will be registered and eventually issued their respective identification cards.
    He appealed to the families with PWD members to declare the same so that they will be able to benefit from the various services provided to the PWDs and for them to be part of the numerous interventions given to the PWDs for them to become productive citizens of the society amidst their disabilities.