CLARENCE PEN: Bacolod PDAO Excellent Service

When I was hired by the Sectoral Affairs Office under the Bacolod City Mayor Albee Benitez administration to be employed in the sectoral force with a specific function to assist communication works and re-organize Persons With Disability-based associations under the auspices of the PWD Affairs Office or PDAO, I was a little bit surprised and overwhelmed.

I have in mind that I can help contribute my talent and skills in the office of our head Alma Gustilo in undertaking communication works as a writer and media practitioner, bringing the office in a next ladder through a quality and excellent service.

The opportunity for me in bringing the PWD sector in the whole community instilled my confidence and assurance that life here on earth is still meaningful. But frankly speaking, I could not bear to look at myself suffering and painfully humiliated by some though it is a part of reality in unschooled Filipino instinct that our sector is treated with inequality. That’s why, when I was entrusted with this duty my sobering thought dictated to “GIVE YOUR VERY BEST IN SERVICE, NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES”.

This service was a challenge in my part to deliver my capability in helping my fellow PWDs as the lyrics in a song we sing since our early days that goes, “No man is an island, No man stands alone.”

Each one needs the service of other people. The undulated melody keeps me at peace and confident that I have something worth proving in the PWD sector. I fully expressed my gratitude that Ma’am Carmelli Bantug Zayco, our sectoral office leader, entrusted this duty to share my experience in journalism.

The last six months of rendering duty to the Office of the Persons with Disabilities reminds me that physical infirmities are not an obstacle for success as long as one has devotion and dedication in the fulfillment of his duty.

This January 2023, I was saddened and regretful that I was not in the list of the labor force though I came out with my study to present and execute a program that will help the sector for I treasure that ‘TIME’ is of the essence and valuable so we need to redeem it.* (Clarence Locsin)