It is an undeniable fact that people considered as Persons with Disability (PWDs) are not on equal footing with the other groups in our society. As Commission on Human Rights Representative Quintin Cueto said, “People with disabilities are often negatively stereotyped and marginalized by the rest of society.” Even at present, there are still people who simply do not recognize or respect their needs, while others would treat them as mere models for inspiration without actually doing anything to help.

In a way, the existence of these circumstances is due in part to the lack of any real recognition or concrete form of support for PWDs. Only in recent years has this been remedied, through the creation of Republic Act 7277, or the Magna Carta for Persons with Disability.

Laws and policies

The Magna Carta for PWDs is the collection of policies, rights, and other court rulings that pertain to PWDs. One of the immediately recognizable improvements brought about by the act is the official definition of “persons with disability,” which refers to “those suffering from restriction of different abilities, as a result of a mental, physical or sensory impairment, to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being.” This sets clear bounds for people who are considered and recognized as PWDs, effectively debunking the common misconception that disabilities only refer to those that are physical and easily seen.

The chapter that pertains to education is also particularly important, considering that the Philippine Statistics Authority’s 2010 census revealed that disabilities are most prevalent among persons aged 5 to 19. Education is integral in the development of a child, and disabilities can disrupt this process easily if not attended to properly. As such, schools need to have a specific set of rules to follow with regards to PWDs in order to effectively facilitate their development in light of their heightened needs.

On that note, the act specifies that the State shall ensure that disabled persons are granted access to education and other opportunities to develop their skills. This directly applies to State universities and other groups that are under the government, but the application becomes ambiguous when it comes to private learning institutions, as a lot of the requirements specified by the act are either just encouraged or implied. This could bring about complications that relate to morals, limitations, and other such subjective matters, but at the very least, the basics have been established.

For one, these institutions are encouraged to accept PWDs whenever possible, and this intrinsically comes with a slew of other requirements such as catering to the needs of PWDs by modifying facilities, class schedules, and other potential concerns. The act also promotes other provisions like discounts for school supplies, financial aid scholarships, auxiliary services that will help facilitate learning and development, and the like. These measures assure that PWDs won’t feel alienated and can work on par with other students.

Services

On the surface level, the Ateneo more or less complies with all the aforementioned rules and requirements. The school occasionally accepts people who are considered PWDs, and upon closer inspection, there has been an ample amount of effort on the school’s part in overseeing these cases. There are plenty of facilities and services present on campus that specifically address the needs of PWDs.

Mobility is one of the more common needs to be attended to. Over the last few years, the school has been making minor additions to some of the existing buildings and structures in order to make campus life for PWDs easier and less tedious. Among these are a series of ramps and walkways which are most noticeable along secwalk, and elevators in buildings such as the Rizal Library, the M.V.P. Center for Student Leadership, and the PLDT-CTC.

Healthcare is another need to take into account, and this is handled by the Office of Health Services (OHS). The OHS has several services available to students, from first aid, check-ups, and over-the-counter medicine. There is also a substantial array of equipment for both general use and emergency situations, such as wheelchairs, crutches, and other miscellaneous appliances. A recent upgrade to the OHS’s services includes a machine-operated lift, which allows for effective vertical movement in the case that other means of transportation are not possible.

Moreover, services also exist beyond those handled by the administration. Various student organizations have projects that help raise awareness and cater to the needs of PWDs both directly and indirectly.

The Ateneo Special Education Society (SPEED) is one such organization, and they aim to aid people with special needs inside and outside the campus. Ateneo SPEED President Patricia Carolino mentions that “[The organization] is in direct contact with the Office of Student Support & Specialized Services…wherein for Atenean students with special needs, they are immediately invited to join our organization—as an environment for them to practice their socialization and generally, to adjust better in college.” Among SPEED’s many projects are a “Buddy Program” that helps students with special needs in coping with certain issues and adjusting to campus lifestyle through talks, group dynamics, and other such methods.

Lingering problems

With that said, there are still a couple of issues that make matters a little more complicated.

In an article written for the December press of The GUIDON called Work in Progress, Facilities Management Office Director Michael Canlas mentioned that expansions and renovations for older buildings can be considerably expensive because they weren’t constructed with these additions in mind, and this statement remains true even at present. Considering that the Magna Carta was passed only two decades ago, it is not surprising that the older buildings on campus such as Xavier and Berchmans Hall do not have any PWD-specialized facilities, as these weren’t in the building requirements back then.

Furthermore, severe disabilities can require specialized equipment. For example, the school bought Roselle Ambubuyog (BS Math, ’01) a Braille Translation Software which converts computer-encoded text into their Braille equivalent, as well as a Braille printer that produces physical copies of these translations, and these two have a combined cost of roughly thousands of dollars. These can aid greatly in the learning process for blind students, but it still needs to be taken into account that this aids only one form of disability in the midst of many others.

Adding structures that aid with mobility and purchasing different forms of specialized equipment may definitely help ease life for PWDs. However, the various factors to consider such as the steep cumulative cost of acquisition and maintenance, the buildings’ structural integrity, and the lack of users for the specialized equipment ultimately make these projects not very feasible.

Delving into the topic deeper, these examples illustrate the complicated choice between ideality and practicality. Certain compromises have to be made in light of the potential repercussions of these decisions, and this unfortunately leads to some inevitable problems—some of which were outlined by Cueto in one of his papers. He noted three problems which are rooted in this dilemma: Discrimination and exclusion, barriers in communication, and lack of awareness and information.

These problems are reflected in the Ateneo community at present, albeit at a much smaller scale. The most prominent of these is the existence of communication barriers, especially in the audio-visual aspect of classroom interaction. This can affect people with sight or hearing deficiencies, which encompasses a large portion of the school community.

While this is only a minor inconvenience to some, the overall effect that it can have to a student’s learning and lifestyle cannot simply be ignored either. Over time, these issues can not only affect the person’s ability to learn, but these can also pile up and create anxiety, stress, and other more pressing psychological concerns.

Future plans

The numerous cases of PWDs successfully graduating from the Ateneo are testaments to the fact that the school has the proper foundations. According to an OHS representative who did not want to be named, this is emblematic of the Ateneo community’s generally positive outlook with regards to PWDs. “It’s not just the physical environment, it is really the whole community that you have to cite as supportive of PWDs on campus,” she mentions.

With that said, the previous insights reveal that there is still much to improve on. While there are several factors that inhibit the acquisition of more facilities and equipment, further improvement of campus culture and the psychological response to and treatment of PWDs can be just as impactful.

On this note, Carolino states that “in my experience with students with special needs, they have great difficulty in establishing relationships with others as friends. It mainly comes from the fact that not a lot of students actually know how to interact with them and they may not respond or interact like how others usually do.” To this, she suggests having more avenues for awareness and information through orientations, talks, and PWD-focused INTACT modules.

With projects such as these and the combined efforts of the student body and the administration, it may yet be possible to make the Ateneo environment ideal enough to effectively cater to the needs and development of PWDs in the near future. Whether this truly happens still remains to be seen, but at the very least, it is evident that we are already on the right track.