Special lane for women opened by PCSO in ‘women’s month’

MANILA — Women seeking medical assistance from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) can expect faster processing of their requests as the charity agency has set up a special lane for them as part of its support to the National Women’s Month.

PCSO Vice Chair and General Manager Jose Ferdinand Rojas II said that through the recommendation of their Gender and Development Focal Point System, a special lane for women clients have been set up at the charity agency’s Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP) satellite office in Quezon City for the entire month of March. Individual medical assistance papers are being processed by the PCSO at the LCP.

Currently, at least 800 patients go to the LCP to process their requests under the PCSO’s Individual Medical Assistance Program. The PCSO approves daily an average of P18.5 million in financial assistance.

Rojas said that the initiative of giving women special access to PCSO services has been the agency’s way to support the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) in the observance of the National Women’s Month.

Apart from giving women priority, Rojas said advocacy videos from the PCW on protecting women’s rights have been shown on monitors set up at the PCSO’s head office in Mandaluyong City as well as in LCP. He added that these same videos would be shown to a larger number of audience through the PCSO’s nightly lotto draws.

“These moves are meant to increase awareness among the public of women’s issues and the role of government in caring for all members of society on a foundation of equality and fairness,” Rojas said in a statement over the weekend.

He said more programs addressing women and gender issues would be implemented by the PCSO within this year.  SFM