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.