NANCY INITIATES MOVE TO MAKE SENATE PWD-FRIENDLY
...proposes sign language interpreters in sessions, hearings

Put advocacies into actions and make the Senate a more PWD-friendly government facility.

This is Sen. Nancy Binay's proposal when she filed Senate Resolution No. 513 to make the Senate a PWD-friendly institution by urging the body to provide sign language interpreters in senate sessions and committee hearings.

"The intention of the resolution is to improve information dissemination to PWDs particularly to individuals with hearing impairments," Binay said.

"Providing sign language interpreters in hearings and sessions will also further PWD rights, especially their participation in development issues and concerns," she added.

Binay said that the RA 7277 or the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons gives impetus for the state to support the improvement of disabled persons and their integration into mainstream society.

She said that she personally saw the need for the Senate to provide sign language interpreters when a group visited the body last month, adding that she will ask Senate President Franklin Drilon and fellow senators to support the move to have a sign language interpreters by May this year.

"The growing presence and involvement of PWDs in matters of national importance is an indication of their resolve to participate in significant social, economic and political issues," Binay said.

"We have said during the last campaign that we will push for legislation that will provide hearing-impaired individuals access to information and bring them closer to modern communication tools that would empower them, so this resolution is one step towards the achievement of that," she added.

The United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), to which Binay belongs, provided sign language support in most, if not all, of its campaign rallies for the benefit of persons with disabilities, particularly the deaf community.

"It is the duty of the State to convey information and issues with national importance to all citizens including PWDs and it is also the duty of the Senate to promote the rights of PWDs by policy or by law," Binay said.