Last Feb. 4, Restaurant Owners of the Philippines (“Resto PH”) released an official statement asserting that “fake PWD (person with disability) cards are crippling the restaurant industry.”

The group called for fairness as they noted that the prevalence of fake PWD IDs cuts into the revenues of an industry with already slim margins to work with, which particularly impacts small and medium businesses working to make ends meet.

Resto PH’s statement sparked robust debate online, with netizens’ reactions ranging from calls for a unified system of PWD ID verification, to arguments that the statement contributes to the stigma surrounding invisible disabilities, to comparisons between corruption and the usage of fake IDs.

At the core of this debate is the infamous 20% discount across selected industries, which was mandated by Republic Act 10754 as part of the privileges and benefits accorded to disabled people. The rationale of the discount: to alleviate the cost of living with a disability.

This rationale is actually quite revealing, insofar as it points to the fundamental issue underpinning fake PWD IDs and the outcry against their use: the unbearably high cost of living in the Philippines.

People are living in extremely insecure and precarious times—hence the desperation to cut costs on the side of the fake PWD ID users, and the concern over lost revenue (a staggering P88 billion in 2023) on the side of business owners.

Yet debates over the proliferation of fake PWD IDs often miss the crucial context of the cost of living, which drives discriminatory speculation of whether someone is faking their disability and leads to fights between ordinary people who all bear the brunt of the government’s negligence, corruption and inefficiency.

In short: the 20% discount has us all fighting amongst each other, caught in constant debates that seek to determine who truly “deserves” the discounts.

We miss the bigger picture—that the government has failed to truly address the needs of disabled people in offloading the weight of PWD discounts to businesses.

Our demand as disabled people and advocates for PWDs should be two-pronged: first, that following the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons, privileges for PWDs should be fully subsidized by the state—not businesses.

While PWD and senior citizen discounts can technically be written off as a tax deduction, many have noted that this tax deduction does not fully shoulder the costs of these discounts.

Full government subsidy is not an obscene demand in a country wherein over P2 trillion of the national budget is allotted for pork barrels, as determined by business analysts. In fact, I am of the firm opinion that the 20% discount is paltry and insufficient in the face of the cost of living with a disability—we should be demanding more and better, such as full subsidies for medical needs and equipment, more inclusive education systems, and better employment opportunities for PWDs. 

Second, we ought to shift our gaze to the bigger picture and address the rationale behind the 20% discount. In a better Philippines—a Philippines we should fight for—there would be no need to alleviate the cost of living with a disability, because the basic needs and rights of everyone, regardless of ability, would be met.

Concretely, this means universal healthcare systems that work, accessible mass transportation systems, national industries that can produce goods at lower costs, full employment with livable wages, education systems that meet the needs of both students and teachers and a government that is transparent, accountable and inclusive. 

As a person with an acquired disability, I also think we have to be frank with ourselves: disability is not an exception to “normal” healthiness and able-bodiedness, but a complex and varied state of being that increasingly affects more and more “normal” people.

With the advancement of medical technology, an aging population and living in a world with more vulnerabilities to chronic illnesses, it is inevitable that more and more people can become disabled with disabilities that are recognized to be “real.”

I place “real” in quotation marks to underscore that the division between real and fake disabilities is quite arbitrary in reality, (i.e., think of the difficulty of diagnosing psychological disabilities) and this division does nothing but hurt PWDs that already face intense stigma and discrimination.

If more people have valid PWD IDs and are thus availing of the privileges afforded to them by law, it is not sustainable to expect businesses, especially small and medium sized businesses, to carry the weight of meeting discounts.

A unified system to verify IDs, the most common solution to fake IDs, will not address the reality of more people with disabilities. This fact, and that this number is likely to increase in the next few decades, should force us to address the root cause of fake PWD IDs.

The fight for inclusion, accessibility and disability rights is not solely the fight of disabled people. I genuinely believe our struggles are the struggles of all Filipinos—it is, ultimately, the struggle for a better Philippines for all citizens.

These goals require a determined unity across sectors—not debates that pits ordinary citizens against each other. As a disabled person, I believe this is not only possible but necessary for our shared future.

---