X. Rehabilitation, Sheltered Workshop and Employment
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), through its rehabilitation and vocational programs, has also provided continuing capability-building for individuals as well as self-help groups of persons with disabilities. Rehabilitation services for the sector have three major components: social preparation, functional literacy and job placement. The main objective of this program is to develop self-reliance and socio economic independence. Together with the Tulong Alalay (TULAY) or Support and Maintenance
Program of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), employment and livelihood trainings are provided. Grants for initial business capitals given or loaned to deserving trainees are included in the package. The expenses on training on chosen skills and management are provided as grants while capital outlays and operational supports are loaned with soft terms and conditions.
Since its initiation in 2000, the TULAY program resulted to the establishments of stable livelihood projects which eventually became successful business endeavors that are owned, managed, operated by and employed with persons with disabilities. From the data provided by Ms. Evelyn Dacumos of DOLE, as of November 2008, Tulay 2000 program recorded a total of 345 wage employment to persons with disabilities, 1,371 self-employment for persons with disabilities and had trained 1,005 persons with disabilities.
These complimenting programs of DSWD and DOLE can boast successful real stories. At least four massage groups: the Balikatan Multi Purpose and Transport Cooperatives, the Center for Advocacy, Learning and Livelihood or (CALL) Foundation Inc. Massage Clinics, the New Vision Massage Center and the Visually Impaired Brotherhood for Excellent Services (VIBES) Massage Franchising groups have been cited by government and non government recognition bodies for their outstanding entrepreneurial achievements. The self help organizations succeeded in demonstrating that persons with vision impairments in particular and persons with disabilities in general can develop projects that are worth emulating if provided with adequate training and capital support. Combined, these enterprises have employed hundreds of blind and vision impaired masseurs in clinics that could be reached in various public places: malls, airports, parks, entertainment venues etc. It should be noted that most of these workers are less schooled, though well trained in their particular professions. They too are licensed masseurs and have qualified from written and practical examinations given by the Department of Health.
As mentioned previously, in the orthopedic sector, the school desk manufacturing projects operated mostly by member cooperatives of the National Federation of Persons with Disabilities Cooperatives can also be partly credited to the TULAY Program. This program has already been institutionalized through the mandate of the General Appropriations Act (GAA) which allocated ten (10) percent of the Department of Education budget for production and purchase of school desks be awarded to cooperatives owned, managed and operated by persons with disabilities. This annual GAA program is further complimented by Presidential Proclamation 240 of August 200268 which in particular mandates that all agencies under the Executive Department from the national, regional, provincial, including Local Government Units (LGUs) and Government Owned and Controlled Corporations (GOCCs) and Government Financial Institutions (GFIs) must allocate at least one (1) percent of their gross national budget to enhance services
to and for the sector. The Tahanang Walang Hagdan (TWH) wheelchair production program is partly financed by funds annually provided by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), a government finance institution. For the deaf sector, the encoding jobs of NOVA. Foundation receives financial supports in its training components from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR).
In the micro-finance business, groups of persons with disabilities are also showing capabilities in providing livelihood and employment. Most members of the Federation of Persons with Disability Cooperatives (FPWD-COOP) are also credit providing groups for the sector.Other than the TULAY Program of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the Philippine Credit and Finance Corporation PCFC of NAPC provided most of the seed capitals. These self help organizations (SHOs) persons with disabilities are scattered in the various regions of the country.
In recent years, due to the globalization of trade policy, a number of SSHOs expressed serious concerns relative to technological issues. In particular, the wheelchair production program of the Tahanang Walang Hagdan (TWH) has been harping for further support relative to research and development on improving its technology. (This issue will be tackled further in the Section on RND). The TWH wheelchair and other livelihood projects are mostly categorized as sheltered workshops for persons with disabilities.
A. The Sheltered Workshop Scene
There is an assumption based on fact that with the training and funds provided there are persons with disabilities who just cannot qualify for employment both in public and private companies. They are also perceived to be unable to manage funds for investments in business and entrepreneurial endeavors. This is the main justification for the maintenance of sheltered workshops both in government and the private sector.
At present, at least four regional areas in the country, four sheltered workshops (or what are now called work centers) are managed by the DSW. They are housed at the compoundsof the National Vocational and Rehabilitation Center in Metro Manila and three Area Vocational and Rehabilitation Centers in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
While it is true that the general labor market is still uncomfortable with and even hostile to the idea of accepting applicants with disabilities, advocates of the sector can identify long-time clients
of these sheltered workshops who are significantly skilled. To deal with skilled and productive workers with disabilities as mere clients
means that they will never qualify to receive the Equal pay for Equal work
mandate of existing labor Laws including RA 7277, the Magna Carta for Persons with Disabilities69 and is a flagrant violation of these workers'human rights well enshrined in the CRPD.
As already noted in other sections of this narrative, these types of dealings are the chief cause of the proliferation of mendicants with disabilities in the streets of Metro Manila and other urban areas. The advocates of the sector are currently reviewing the Anti Mendicancy Law, a Presidential Decree 156370 enacted during the martial law era to see what could be done to ensure that none of its provisions violates the CRPD and more importantly enhance the rights of persons with disabilities for decent work and employment consistent with their inherent dignity.
- Note #70
- The Lawphil Project
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The Philippine government bureaucracy has been employing qualified persons with disabilities even prior the enactment of RA 727771. In the presentation of Ms. Evelyn Dacumos72 she said that, statistics about the hiring of people with disabilities. Data gathered from the Civil Service Commission showed that there are a total of4,086 people with disabilities employed by the government all over the Philippines. For its part, DOLE has employed 48 people with disabilities
. Several agencies at the national level employ civil servants with disabilities including: the National Council for the Welfare of Disabled Persons, the Department of Social Welfare and Development , National Vocational Rehabilitation Center and the Rehabilitation Sheltered Workshops, the Bureau of Disabled Welfare (now dissolved)), the Department of Education, Philippine National School for the Blind, Philippine Printing House for the Blind, National School for Crippled Children, the Philippine School for the Deaf and others; the Department of National Defense, (soldiers with disabilities worked in certain programs and project for injured comrades), Public Information Agency, Department of Health and the National Library.
- Note #72
- Presentation of Ms. Evelyn Dacumos of DOLE during the UN CRPD Monitoring and Implementation Traders Hotel, August 5-7, 2008.
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The bureaucracy allows the formation of employees' unions through Executive Order 18073. Unions of various agencies like the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Department of Education and several Local Government Units have employees with disabilities as members.
Recently, it is worth noting that the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) hired as regular employees sixteen people who are deaf including their interpreters. There are now in the encoding section of the Passport division of DFA. The Supreme Court too, through the Chief Justice hired a deaf clerk in March 2009.74
- Note #73
- The Lawphil Project
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In 2001, a group of employees with disabilities, in cooperation with the public sector Labor Independent Confederation (PSLINK.) ,organized the Government Union for the Integration of Differently-abled Employees or GUIDE. Initially, GUIDE and PSLINK appealed to the Civil Service Commission to incorporate in the annual Personal Data Sheet (PDS) an item that would identify the number of employees with disabilities in the entire bureaucracy of nearly 1.5 million workers. In 2003, this item was incorporated. GUIDE., in partnership with PSLINK and other national confederations, participates in various consultative councils which successfully incorporated several concerns of the sector relative to work environments, benefits and privileges and additional compensations. The noteworthy items were the proposed "Work at Home" scheme which is to allow employees with disabilities to work could be accomplished in their residences.75 The aim is to minimize transportation expenses and to enhance productivity. One of the identified items is the item on the proofreading of textbooks in Braille and items utilizing ICT mechanism.
- Note #75
- Civil Service Commission website
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There is now an effort to review Executive Order 18076 to ensure that concerns of employees with disabilities in the bureaucracy are well addressed. GUIDE representatives are now actively represented in the Sectoral Council of Persons with Disabilities, the National Committee on the UN Convention, the Steering Committee for Persons with Disabilities in various funding agencies and the national federations of unions in the country. In the formulation of the Philippine Delegation's contributions to the Ad Hoc Committee that drafted the CRPD, GUIDE. representatives were also active and even were appointed as persons with disabilities Adviser to the UN Philippine Delegation to the International Conferences in New York.
- Note #76
- The Lawphil Project
- Return
- Note #77
- Santos, Carina. A Thesis Presented to the SOLIR in partial fulfillment requirements for the Degree of Master of Industrial Relation; March 9, 2006
- Return
In the private sector, there is both good and bad news. A study conducted in 2004 at the School of Labor and Industrial Relations (SOLIR) of the University of the Philippines noted that private corporations are happy in hiring employees with disabilities.77 On the other hand however, the study also noted several factors that are discouraging corporations from considering the mandate. One of the significant factors is the need to instill in the attitude of many persons with disabilities certain values to survive and be productive in corporate environments.