April 13: Decrying alleged widespread discrimination against them, leaders of organizations representing persons with disabilities (PWDs) will stage a big indignation rally against a Commission on Election (Comelec) decision barring them from the party-list elections on May 10.

Retired Navy Capt. Oscar Taleon, president of the Alyansa ng mga May Kapansanang-Pinoy, said he expects hundreds of PWDs to join the protest action at the Comelec main office on Friday.

Other organizers of the rally include Manuel Agcaoili, Akap-Pinoy chairman; Larry Purcil and Carmen Reyes-Zubiaga, president of Women with Disabilities Leap to Social and Economic Progress.

Taleon assailed the Comelec for rejecting the application of the Disabled Pinoy Party to participate in the May 10 party elections, saying that the decision smacks of “discrimination and insensitivity” of the officials of the poll body to the plight of handicapped Filipinos in the country estimated at about nine million.

Zubiaga urged PWDs or their relatives to join the indignation rally which will also protest the failure of various government and private entities  to comply with various laws protecting the interest of handicapped persons.

The DPP bid to join the party-list elections had been turned down after the Comelec aired doubts it can mount a national campaign.

The poll body also pointed out that DPP and the banned Akap-Pinoy are one and the same organization. The latter, it was gathered, was disqualified from participating in the May 10 elections because of its record three loses in previous polls.

DPP leaders called the attention of the international community to what they described as a grave injustice that the Comelec has committed against physically handicapped Filipinos.


Source: http://www.mb.com.ph