TOTGA: My love affair with my PWD ID

TOTGA – the one that got away. In simple words, the one that you liked most but probably you cannot hold on to for one reason or the other. In the same way, a PWD ID that is fake is like a TOTGA you cannot hold onto it for one reason or the other.

However, in this pressing issue on the proliferation of fake PWD IDs the one that got away with a PWD ID without actually being a true PWD or those without sufficient documentation are the sure TOTGAs. Why?

Having a PWD ID is an identity in itself – a right to claim a special or priority right. To some, it is also a privilege especially for that special discount of 20% less tax on medicines and 5% discount on essential groceries or that 5% funding in the Barangay Treasury’s coffins in tallying with the Senior Citizen’s budget.

It is also a very lucky privilege in the sense that only few get to have or a few get to process, especially for non-apparent disabilities. Imagine the costs of seeing a doctor or making that decision to get an assessment and being declared a PWD?

As per alleged data, there are more than 8 million people using PWD IDs with only more than 2 million PWDs recorded at NCDA. Therefore, a discrepancy would more or less likely suggest that 6 million fake PWD IDs have been in proliferation accordingly. However, logic dictates that this may not be the real case.

From a person with a disability perspective and not “disabled person” which is already an obsolete word and with a non-apparent Psychosocial Disability person with lived experiences, my journey to identity and acceptance was an eerie world of finding support and fighting stigma. I was diagnosed in 2008 and tried finding work without declaring that I am a person with Psychosocial Disability. Why? It is because the stigma of having a disability is a stinking thought equivalent to being called crazy.

In 2008 when I was having a psychosis – hallucinations and delusions, I concentrated on healing and self-care until I was ready to make things work, meaning, I can get out of my bed every morning without the moods and modes of finding it hard to get up. I was already diagnosed with Schizophrenia then.

However, after 2016, only then was I ready to tell the world I have a disability. In 2018, I told my supervisor about this and in less than a year, my performance at work plummeted because I was in a case of relapse and the supervisor happened to dissolve the position I had under a contract of service come 2019.

In December 2019, I came out of a subsidiary government work and also came out as a Person with Psychosocial Disability. However, it was only in 2022 that I applied for a PWD ID. Why?

It is because having a PWD ID may be evidence for refusal of hiring or getting good work or simply put, an obstacle to my dreams. I got the PWD ID because I was already having financial difficulties paying for my medicines which I cannot and should not refrain from taking. That’s when I came out for my PWD rights because considering the high cost of medication and maintenance plus the costs of high medical expenses.

You see, my love affair with a PWD ID is hardly a love affair at all but an all important TOTGA I have to live with. It is an identity I had to hide for years because of stigma and being discriminated upon. With the recent news about fake PWD IDs, where does that leave me – the real PWD fighting and advocating for my place in this world?

I believe in justice, equality and equity but in this era, it’s perhaps the greatest TOTGA a PWD like me has to bear. Why?

It’s because a thief or abuser is the one that got away with my rights and perhaps the identity of being a PWD. It is also the system that made such proliferation and implementation of rules and laws with less “teeth”. It is the corruption that indicted that PWD description to a non-PWD with a fake PWD ID.

The real issue is not really the discount given as some establishments like restaurants continue to counter. The issue should be this, “Are PWDs afforded the equity rights to live fully, healthily and with less discomforts associated with their apparent or non-apparent disabilities?” In the course of taking things wholly, maybe the underlying issue is the affordable healthcare in the Philippines or maybe the right to live as uniquely or as diverse as possible.

Now, where is justice, equality and equity? Will these be the ones that we now call TOTGA? Justice, equality and equity and the ones that got away with it!