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As part of this year’s celebration of White Cane Safety Week, a half-day web accessibility forum was held anew last August 2 at Occupational Safety and Health Center Training Room in Quezon City.

Julius Charles Serrano, a web accessibility advocate and PWAG representative gave his insights on user experience in accessing government websites. He also explained some accessibility barriers met by a Person With Disability in getting content from websites.

For his part, MCCID Training Director and Philippine Web Accessibility Group President Jojo Esposa elaborated on the topic by introducing ICT as well as discussing international and local laws/circulars pertaining to equal access to the web. NCDA Chief Nelia De Jesus challenged the participants to do their share by adhering to the call of making their sites accessible to everyone.

Sponsored by the National Council on Disability Affairs-White Cane Safety Week Organizers and the National Computer Center, this forum was participated in by web developers and representatives from various national government units as well as key stakeholders.

At the Web Accessibility Forum launched by the NCDA SubCommittee on ICT last July 20, 2010, National Computer Center Information Technology Officer Angelita Nicolas announced the issuance of an NCDA-NCC Joint Circular No.1 Series of 2010, enjoining all government instrumentalities concerned, to implement accessible website design using the technical guidelines recommended by the Web Design Accessibility Recommendation (WDAR) Checkpoints of the PWAG.

DOTC Architect Morales represents Sub-Committee on ICT in awarding NCC IT Officer Angelita Nicolas for sharing NCC initiatives on disability and facilitating issuance of NCDA-NCC Joint Circular on Web Accessiblity Compliance
PWAG or the Philippine Web Accessibility Group, is a non-profit advocacy group of Filipino web designers organized by the Council after its web accessibility workshop series from 2004-to 2007. Tasked by NCDA to monitor compliance by participating GO/NGOs through an NCDA Board Resolution, PWAG reported that only 11 GOs complied, compared to triple number in NGOs, which greatly concerns the sector.

To address this low compliance, the SubCommittee on ICT chaired by he Department of Transportation and Communications pooled resources to hold the forum for NCDA member agencies, in time for the NDPR Week. MCCID Training Director and Philippine Web Accessibility Group Current President Jojo Esposa Jr., was one of the main lecturers. He expounded on the Accessible Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and how important it is to everyone especially those who are with physical impairments. He enumerated some access barriers experienced by PWDs when they open government sites. He also introduced a few tips on how to make websites accessible.

For his part, ATRIEV Executive Director Antonio Llanes together with Project Director Rene Orense demonstrated some assistive devices used by visually impaired and those with low vision. These includes screen readers and screen magnifier softwares.

To ensure full compliance in his Department, being a member of the SubCommittee, DOTC Representative Architect Rizal Morales would soon have a similar forum exclusively for all his Department bureaus.

Inspirational messages from NCC Managing Director Juliana Sudario, Philippine DAISY Network President Lauro Purcil, DOTC Architect Rizal Morales and NCDA OIC Matt Lee, Jr. jointly urged the participants to adopt web accessibility to create digital opportunities for all, including PWDs, from the potential offered by ICTs for development.

Third year batch 2010 students of MCCID attended the first Web Accessibility Forum conducted by the National Council on Disability Affairs Sub-committee on Information and Communications Technology held last July 20 at Philvolcs Auditorium in UP Diliman Campus, Quezon City.

Aside from NCDA, other cooperating agencies include the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) – National Computer Center (NCC), the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). NCDA member agencies like DOH, DSWD, Philippine Information Agency, DOST and DFA also participated.

The highlight of the forum is the announcement of the official signing of NCC-NCDA Joint Circular No. 1 requiring all websites of government line agencies including their attached, regional and state universities and colleges to redesign their websites in order to pass the web accessibility design standards set by Manila ICT Design Recommendations through the Philippine Web Accessibility Group. NCC IT Officer Angelita Nicolas gave the announcement. She also informed the participants about future workshops and seminars that will be held.

Aside from MCCID, other Persons With Disabilities Non-Government Organizations also attended the forum. These includes ATRIEV, Philippine Network of Daisy Consortium and Philippine Deaf Federation (PFD). PFD President Raquel Estiller-Corpuz requested all government agencies to open their doors to PWDs especially those who don’t have funds to connect to the internet to offer their services free.

The forum’s objective is to make the participants understand the concepts of web accessibility towards a “disability-inclusive” Philippines where information accessibility for persons with disabilities is based on human rights principles. It also aims to encourages the attendees especially the government sector to make their websites compliant to web accessibility standards under the Manila ICT Design Recommendations and/or the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

The activity coincides with the country’s annual celebration of the 32nd National Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation Week (July 17-23). This year’s theme is “Sa Istrukturang Accessible, Lahat ay Able“. DPWH is this year’s lead agency.

See full text of the Joint Circular here.

This year’s “Disabled Friendly Website Awards” were held last July 10 at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) as part of the very first Philippine Web Design Conference spearheaded by the newly formed Philippine Web Designers Organization (PWDO).

The Philippine Web Accessibility Group through its president and MCCID Training Director Jojo Esposa and the National Council on Disability Affairs presented the plaques of appreciation to the following recipients:

1. www.philcecnet.ph – Official Philippine E-center Community Portal of the National Computer Center represented by Ms. Eloisa San Mateo (Government)
2. www.blinding-light.com – Personal Website of Ms.Miko Reznor (Anna Monica Esguerra)
3. www.lilianefoundationphil.org – Official Website of Liliane Foundation Philippines represented by Sis. Agnetia Naval, National Coordinator (Non-government Organization)
4. webstandards.raquedan.com – Web Standards Website of Regnard Raquedan (Personal Website)

They all received a plaque of appreciation courtesy of the NCDA. Incidentally, the official website of Liliane Foundation Philippines was designed by an MCCID alumnus Kerwin Tamanu. He also currently works in that organization.

This year’s “Disabled Friendly Website Awards” were held last July 10 at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) as part of the very first Philippine Web Design Conference spearheaded by the newly formed Philippine Web Designers Organization (PWDO).

The Philippine Web Accessibility Group through its president and MCCID Training Director Jojo Esposa and the National Council on Disability Affairs presented the plaques of appreciation to the following recipients:

1. www.philcecnet.ph – Official Philippine E-center Community Portal of the National Computer Center represented by Ms. Eloisa San Mateo (Government)
2. www.blinding-light.com – Personal Website of Ms.Miko Reznor (Anna Monica Esguerra)
3. www.lilianefoundationphil.org – Official Website of Liliane Foundation Philippines represented by Sis. Agnetia Naval, National Coordinator (Non-government Organization)
4. webstandards.raquedan.com – Web Standards Website of Regnard Raquedan (Personal Website)

Panel of Speakers

They all received a plaque of appreciation courtesy of the NCDA. Incidentally, the official website of Liliane Foundation Philippines was designed by an MCCID alumnus Kerwin Tamanu. He also currently works in that organization.

The Philippine compliance in terms of web accessibility is considered as the strongest in Asia as revealed by the research conducted by the University of Worcester in United Kingdom.

Entitled, “Global e-government Web Accessibility: An Empirical Examination of EU, Asian and African Sites”, the study cited the Philippines as one of the strongest outlooks among Asian countries of promoting disability access. First, the government both signed and ratified the UN Treaty. Second, the federal law section (RA7277) “the Magna Carta for the Disabled Persons,” specifically prohibits discrimination against disabled persons.

Using appropriate tools in analyzing sites based on Web Content Accessibility Guideline 1.0, the researchers used TAW software product. It tests checkpoint levels A (priority 1), AA (priority 2) and AAA (priority 3). For each of these checkpoints TAW provides a detailed report of both automatic and human review issues. Automatic issues are those errors that the software has checked based on the WCAG guidelines.

The research indicates that

All of the countries have signed and/or ratified the UN Treaty on Rights of Disabled. However, compared to the EU countries, in Asia the only country with a strong internal disability law is the Philippines. The Philippines was the Asian country showing the strongest compliance level for WCAG level A, with four of the sixgovernment sites meeting the checkpoint requirements, and only showing eight overall ‘A’ level errors and 426 warnings.
Although most Asian countries showed poor compliance results and weak laws, the Philippines was an exception. Stronger internal laws correlated with higher compliance of Web accessibility design among their government sites.

Evaluation results show that the vast majority of global government sites do not meet WCAG 1.0 checkpoint standards. Some countries, such as the UK, have their own accessibility laws However, even those countries with internal laws, like the UK, have not totally met minimum requirements. The results show that those countries with stronger internal disabilities laws surpass those with weak or non-existent laws in their compliance levels. For example, all the tested EU countries have strong internal disabilities laws, and the results of this study showed that all EU countries outperformed those from Asia and Africa in compliance at all three WCAG priority levels.

The researchers used the Powerpoint presentation of PWAG President Jojo Esposa during one of his lectures at mini-conferences conducted by the Philippine Web Designers Organization (PWDO) with which he was one of the founding members. The presentation can be downloaded under Web Accessibility Presentations of Resources Page.

You may download the complete research paper here in pdf format.

Good news! Finalists for 14 categories in the Best Blog Division of 2nd Philippine Blog Awards are out! Congratulations to PWAG members who are included in the list.

1. BEST BLOG – ENTERTAINMENT
   Screensucked [http://www.screensucked.com] – Regnard Raquedan
2. BEST BLOG – CULTURE & ARTS
   Dalityapi Unpoemed [http://www.dalityapi.com] – Sonny Villafania (PWAG
   Secretary)
3. BEST BLOG – SPORTS
   Big Lakers Fan [http://biglakersfan.blogspot.com/] – Regnard Raquedan
4. BEST BLOG – COMMENTARY
   Filipino Deaf from the Eyes of a Hearing Person [http://deafphilippines.wordpress.com] – Jojo Esposa
5. BEST BLOG DESIGN
   Stellify [http://stellify.net] – Sophia Lucero
6. BLOGGER’S CHOICE AWARDS
   Alfredo B. Palconit Jr. Blog [http://alfredo.palconit.com] – Alfredo Palconit
   Turfsite Manila [http://www.bobreyes.com] – Robert Reyes

They were chosen out of 600 bloggers who participated. Go to their official website at www.philippineblogawards.com.ph to view the complete list.

Awarding ceremony will be held on September 21, 5:00 pm at 1 Esplanade Mall of Asia. Congratulations again to all the finalists! You are already winners.

After passing their rigid criteria, the PWAG Official Website recently received the Gold Edition of the humble yet noteworthy Talking Hands Awards for 3rd Quarter of 2008 for being a freshly presented teaching site! It also received the Visual Delights Award under the Key Teaching-Learning Element.

Based on the collective judgment of the awards committee, PWAG website merited the award because it teaches web accessibility with great commitment and introducing new terms and concepts augmented with thoughtful and precise narrative. They also added:

All of us have heard in one form or another that the “holy grail” of web design is to merge the artist and technician into one, who presents accessibility and standards compliance into beauty and understanding. (PWAG) accomplishes that task with eye candy etched in a visitors memory. First impressions aside, the resources contained within the website are freshly presented by a large group of young people, much younger than myself, who will make a difference for we who are disabled.

The Talking Hands Award Program started in 1986 to honor the father’s mother of Mr. Denny Lancaster who taught him American Sign Language at an early age and to provide resources as their family searched for information about morphea. As the Internet became popular, the program began giving out the website awards in 1998.International Children’s Library was last year’s Annual Award Honoree while DLSU Official Website received the Gold Edition award in 4th Quarter of 2006.

The award’s singular purpose is to reward web site authors, who through their creative excellence provide a web site which teaches, contains teaching elements in sufficient detail, and otherwise leaves a visitor with something of significant value after returning to their normal daily activities, which will enable them to be better citizens of the world.

In order to pass their criteria, they required to release the exclusive availability of PWAG Resources links to everyone and not just to Yahoogroup members. The site must also reach the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guideline 1.0 Level Double-A and with no validation errors on all HTML and CSS files in order to receive their laudation. PWAG website received a total of 14 nominations which merited the Gold Edition Award.

View the complete nomination comments as well as other judges’ comments under the Awards Community News.

The National Council on Disability Affairs Board recently approved a resolution “Requesting the Commission on ICT/National Computer Center to Deputize the Philippine Web Accessibility Group (PWAG) to Undertake Web Accessibility Assessment of Websites”.

Here is the complete Board Resolution No. 13 Series of 2008:

“Resolution Requesting the Commission on ICT/National Computer Center to Deputize the Philippine Web Accessibility Group (PWAG) to Undertake Web Accessibility Assessment of Websites of Participating Agencies and to Enjoin Member Agencies of NCDA to Comply with Web Accessibility Minimum Requirements”

WHEREAS, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) Article 9 recognizes the importance of persons with disabilities’ accessibility to information and communication (ICT) to enable them to fully enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms.

WHEREAS, the Philippines is a signatory and has ratified the said instrument on April 15, 2008, and is bound to ensure that the provisions of the Convention are achieved and realized.

WHEREAS, the Philippines has undertaken an “Interregional Seminar and Regional Demonstration Workshop” in 2003 in partnership with the United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs (UN-DESA), to promote web accessibility in Southeast Asia, which resulted two outcome documents, the “Manila ICT Design Recommendations” and the “Manila Declaration on Accessible ICT”.

WHEREAS, three workshops series were conducted for 200 web designers and advocates in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao to capacitate them to develop accessible websites to open up GO and NGO programs and services available to PWDs.

WHEREAS, a national interface was held to assess the progress of the 3 regional workshops and to address the low web accessibility compliance of concerned agencies, a MOA was forged between NCWDP now NCDA , and the CICT-NCC tasking the latter to 1) monitor the web accessibility compliance of participating web designers and advocates, 2) include web accessibility in its regular training programs; and 3) create relevant policies promoting web accessibility. Further, a committed core group of trainees organized themselves into an e-advocacy group, which is now known as the “Philippine Web Accessibility Group” (PWAG), to help the government push web accessibility compliance among GOs and NGOs.

WHEREAS, despite the initiatives and the existence of the Convention for PWDs that supports accessible ICT, large amount of information that can be found in government websites remain inaccessible to them, hence there is a need to effectively monitor compliance to web accessibility standards or at least providing reasonable accommodation to ensure access to information by PWDs.

WHEREAS, the Commission on Information and Communication Technology – National Computer Center (CICT-NCC) as the mandated agency on all matters related to ICT is short of skilled technical people to monitor all government agencies compliance to web accessibility.

RESOLVED, AS IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED, upon the recommendation of the Sub-Committee on ICT and Executive Committee, the Board requests the Commission on Information and Communication Technology-National Computer Center to deputize the “Philippine Web Accessibility Group” (PWAG) to undertake web accessibility assessment of websites of participating agencies.

RESOLVED, FURTHER, to enjoin member agencies of NCDA to comply with web accessibility minimum requirements.

Let copy of this Resolution be furnished to the concerned member agencies of the Council.

Certified by:

      MATEO A. LEE, JR
      Deputy Executive Director
      Officer-In-Charge