SENIOR CITIZENS and persons with disabilities have had to climb two to four flights of stairs at the Quirino Almario Elemtnary School in Tondo, Manila, to cast their votes. This is despite a law that requires that they be given preferential treatment during elections.
We found a 61-year-old mother, with her daughter and a 10-month old grandchild in tow, complaining that they have been waiting for hours to cast their vote. The sextagenarian, who refused to giver her name, said nobody assisted her in climbing up the two flights of stairs.
However, Rogelio Masangga, a 41-year old ortho-impaired person counted himself luckier from the other PWDs. Masangga did not experience any problem casting his vote because somebody assisted and led him to a conference room beside the school principal’s office. The conference room — located on the first floor near the main entrance of the school — was the supposed designated precinct for senior citizens and PWDs.
The Commission on Elections earlier said that the first floor of the polling precincts have been set aside for the use PWDs and senior citizens so that they do not have to climb up stairs.
School principal Ruth Ricaforte said that they were providing assistance to PWDs and senior citizens, but “only those who sought help are accommodated.” Ricaforte added that it was up to the Board of Election Inspectors to decide how they would attend to the needs of voters.
The BEIs, for their part, have no list of senior citizens and PWDs so they could not monitor if their voters were elderly or have impediments which they were supposed to assist.
Ricaforte also said that, by this time, the voters should be aware that they can be accommodated in the first floor because it was the same as the last elections. But there were no visible signage indicating the conference room was indeed designated as the special precinct for senior citizens and PWDs.
“We provide them a room so that they will be comfortable, they just have to request,” says Ricaforte.