LENTE 12th Talk Show on Disability-Inclusive Election

On June 11, AGENDA’s partner in the Philippines, Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE), organized its twelfth radio talk show featuring the Assistant Regional Director of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), Jovencio Balanquit, to discuss their election data on voters with disabilities. Tolhas Damanik, AGENDA’s Disability Rights Advisor, was also featured to explore the importance of the implementation of the Enabling Masterplan action points, especially those related to the political rights of persons with disabilities and making elections more disability-inclusive. The project director of LENTE, Kevin Bulotano, opened the discussion by sharing LENTE’s election day monitoring results. He explained that voting centers in Metro Manila were not disability accessible, though separate emergency polling places with accessibility were established instead. Kevin added that LENTE is pushing for the institutionalization of the Vulnerable Sectors Office that would allow the office better budget access, leading to greater availability of projects to reach vulnerable groups. Balanquit spoke about disability data during the election, explaining that he does not have the final count of voters with disabilities. He later shared that the primary violation of the political rights of persons with disabilities reported to COMELEC  is the inaccessibility of election information and polling places. Tolhas later discussed the Enabling Masterplan, explaining that ASEAN will conduct the mid-term review to track the progress of its implementation since its adoption in 2018. Tolhas suggested using the Enabling Masterplan to track the inclusion of persons with disabilities in elections