I have in the past considered getting a person with disability (PWD) ID card, upon recommendation for my once-significantly-more-severe depression and / or whatever else it is that I have that remains unidentified.
Ultimately, I still do not have one, largely because I am not sure if I deserve to have one – mental illness is like that, and also, I have yet to be diagnosed properly by my current therapist vis-a-vis my eligibility for a card.
So it is interesting serendipity that this week, our mental health chief had to issue a stern warning about applying improperly for PWD IDs.
Improperly applying in the sense that people are apparently going up to the city and applying for PWD IDs without having actual disabilities, mainly for the ID-related perks and discounts.
This is slightly infuriating to me, though I do genuinely understand the desire for discounts and perks. Who doesn’t want discounts and perks?
But the point of PWD discounts and perks is not “freebies,” they are there to even out the playing field. The entire point of these benefits is that PWDs generally have a much harder time in many aspects of life – from personal, to career-wise, to health – and the benefits are intended to level the playing field.
While yes, benefits should be extended to everyone, there is a crucial difference between equality and equity – equality is that everyone be treated the same way, and equity is that everyone be treated fairly, and fairness in this case is that those who have less be given more in order to have them be at the same level as those who have more.
The goal has always been to keep everyone at the same starting line to the best of our capabilities. Economic disparity aside, the least we are trying to do is make sure that physical disparity does not become as big a factor as it normally would be.
What we have to realize is that society’s development has different yardsticks, but most crucially, it is about those with no names. Human progress isn’t measured by industry. It’s measured by the value we place on a life, an unimportant life, a life without privilege. That is what defines an age. That is what defines a species.
We have come a long way from simply deciding that people with disabilities are possessed by devils and deserving of the stake, but it is just as important to ensure that we keep in mind that there continues to be progress, that the playing field be evened further.
