LGU Naga offers birthday cakes to PWD celebrants

By Jason B. Neola

NAGA CITY --- Beginning on the first day of 2021, each registered Person With disability (PWD) here will receive a birthday cake from the city government as provided for in an ordinance that codified all PWD’s policies and programs in the city.

The ordinance ‘s other privileges and incentives provision also include a P500-worth of food allowance monthly for indigent bedridden and indigent abandoned PWDs who are registered with the city’s Persons with Disability Affairs Office (PDAO).

Mayor Legacion walks in the upland part of Barangay Concepcion Grande’s Zone 5 on the first day of January 2021…

....just to greet septuagenarian Remedios Sinson (leftmost) on her natal day and offer her a cake, the LGU Naga’s birthday present. Photo also shows City Councilor Elmer Baldemoro (rightmost), chairman of the Sangguniang Panlungsod’s Committee on Persons with Disability (PWD). Story on Page 1.

Aside from 71-year-old Lola Remedios, there were 24 other PWD birthday celebrants who received their cakes from the city government on New Year.

For this year, the Naga City government has listed down 99 birthday celebrants for the entire month of January in all the city’s 27 barangays, while it registered around 4,600 (the figure may increase) for the whole year.

These PWDs are diagnosed to be suffering from various disabilities such as hearing disability, visual disability, disability on speech/communication, physical disability (due to chronic and rare illnesses), orthopedic disability, intellectual disability, psychosocial disability, and multiple disabilities.

City Ordinance No. 2020-072, which was authored by City Councilor Elmer Baldemoro, authorized the city government to provide every member of the PWD sector with all the necessary protection and benefits, and set the manner on how the privileges, incentives and benefits enumerated in the ordinance can be availed.

Other privileges and incentives of PWDs include 20 percent discount on essential goods and exemption from value-added tax, discounts on basic commodities, priority in express lanes, free movies, shelter program, granting of loan assistance in the purchase of padyak units and free-of-charge franchise assistance.

Mayor Nelson Legacion said: “The goodness of this ordinance is that it enables to raise the level of one’s awareness about PWD rights and privileges in the city in a single document as it lays down all the policies that would also make their implementation efficient, expeditious, and effective.

The ordinance tackles services and programs for PWDs from issuance of ePWD IDs to PWD database and PWD rights and privileges up to the different allowances and assistance including burial.

It discusses also the delivery of medical assistance and health services, auxiliary services and access to information including barrier-free environment, transportation, mobility, and parking spaces for PWDs not to mention the benefits they can avail under the ordinance’s political and civil rights provision.