The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has assured persons with disabilities (PWDs) about the status of their own identification cards (IDs) issued by local government units (LGUs).
Following the trial rollout of the National PWD ID system in Laguna province and elsewhere, DSWD officials said that as of present, locally-issued PWD IDs are still honored.
“Sa kasalukuyan, ino-honor pa po ng mga iba't ibang mga establisyemento yun pong mga luma na person with disabilities IDs na issued po ng kanilang mga lokal na pamahalaan,” Assistant Secretary Irene Dumlao said in a statement in response to public queries on the acceptability of the existing cards.
This, as the DSWD and its attached agency, the National Council on Disability Affairs (NCDA), are currently conducting pre-pilot orientations and technical tests in selected localities to identify possible system errors and areas for improvement on the unified ID system.
Among the pilot areas for the National PWD ID system include Santa Rosa City, Laguna, where staff of the Persons with Disability Affairs Office (PDAO) are now undergoing training and orientation in the new system.
“We're still in the pilot run of the unified ID system and we target around 200,000 [PWDs] because we also need to identify if there are any issues or gaps in the system that we need to enhance before we do the nationwide implementation,” she said.
The application, verification, and approval of the unified persons with disabilities ID will be done by the LGUs, through their respective PDAOs.
“We will look at the result of our pilot implementation run para mas maging maayos po yung ating pagpapatupad ng programang ito. And again, yung tinitignan kasi natin at isinasaalang-alang ay yun interes at kapakanan ng atin pong mga persons with disabilities. As much as possible, we want it to be convenient, easy, and more accessible for them,” Dumlao said.
(With report from the Philippine News Agency)
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