Senior Citizen party list Representative Rodolfo Ordanes is pushing for the update of the law for persons with disabilities that is now over 40 years old, in order to expand its coverage to the elderly, children and members of the LGBTQIA community, which he says is “long overdue.”
Batas Pambansa 344 was passed by the Batasang Pambansa, the country’s parliamentary body at the time, in December 1982 and signed into law by then President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., on February 25, 1983. However, its implementing rules and regulations was crafted only in 2003, with revisions done in July last year.
Ordanes said that he was looking to file a bill seeking to expand the law to “explicitly” include senior citizens, children, people with special needs, and the LGBTQIA community.
“I believe there is room to add the disabilities of older seniors and people with special needs. Perhaps even the LGBTQIA concerns on access to comfort rooms or lavatories can be incorporated into the IRR,” he added.
He noted that BP 344 does not have a definition of terms, so it can be improved to consider a wider and inclusive definition of accessibility. Another sign of its age is that agencies currently implementing the law, such as the National Commission of Senior Citizens and the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development, did not exist back when the law was passed.
Another option he raised is to overhaul the law completely “to align it with the new ways laws are written today.”
Passed way back in 1982, BP 344 could be on its way to becoming a senior citizen if it were human, making an update truly long overdue, as so much has happened between then and now, especially as far as the way the world thinks about the elderly, children, and members of the LGBTQIA community is concerned.
Given the delays in its implementation and the way society and government has changed over those 40 years, a refreshed and updated law on persons with disabilities would really benefit its intended beneficiaries more, and allow government to provide the necessary services, rights, and privileges that come with a law that is more relevant to the times.*
