Tan: Hiring PWDs more of a social responsibility

Businesses must look at the social benefit of hiring persons with disabilities (PWDs) as they can be productive in the workplace.

Businessman Philip Tan said that while allowing PWDs join the workforce does not provide much of an economic benefit, it's more of giving employment opportunities to these people.

For instance, Wellmade Motors and Development Corp., a company which Tan owns, is employing some PWDs.

He said roughly 5 percent of its employees are PWDs. His company currently employs over 100 people and has machine shops in Mandaue, Dumaguete, Tacloban and Tagbilaran.

"Discrimination to PWDs in local employment is still there," he said in a recent interview at an entrepreneurship conference earlier this week.

Tan, past president of the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said employing PWDs is one way to uplift these people, making them still relevant in the community.

He said there is a need for social consciousness among business owners to hire PWDs in their companies.

"It's always all about the owners' heart," said Tan, who is also a management representative at the Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Board in Region 7.

He said employing PWDs is a more sustainable way of doing corporate social responsibility as it provides skills to these people which they can depend on for their living.

PWD workers, he said, can be more hard working employees in most cases than the normal ones especially that they know their limitations.

He added there is a law that provides tax benefits to companies that employ PWDs.

The Philippine Magna Carta for Disabled Persons defines disabled persons as “those suffering from restriction or 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.”

Many PWDs belong to the poorest sector of the community and their poverty and disability severely limits their entry into formal employment.

Results of the 2010 census showed that of the 92.1 million household population, 1.57 percent or some 1.4 million persons had disability.

There were more males (50.9 percent of the total) than females (49.1 percent) with disabilities. Disability was highest among Filipinos aged 5 to 19 years.

The total number of PWDs based on the 2010 census showed an increase from the 942,098 PWDs counted during the 2000 census. The 1995 census had an even lower number of PWDs at 919,292.