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office@zeroproject.org
F
ACTS ON
O
UTCOME
,
I
MPACT AND EFFECTIVENESS
1.
As of January 2014, PWAG’s Web Design Accessibility Recommendations (WDAR) are included in the
Government's Unified Website Template Design.
2.
Inclusion of disability in the Philippine Digital Strategy 2011-2016.
3.
The Philippines was part of a paper by Global Initiative for Inclusive ICT that seeks to identify some of the
initiatives and best practices which have been adopted by 14 countries and the European Union as a first step
towards policy formulation for countries.
4.
In 2009, the official website of the National Council on Disability Affairs won the Digital Filipino Web Awards as
"Best Government Organization Website".
5.
In 2009, researchers of the University of Worcesters, UK, cited at Tunisia Conference on Web Accessibility the
Philippines as “the Asian country showing the strongest compliance level for WCAG level A, with four of the six
government sites meeting the checkpoint requirements, and only showing eight overall ‘A’ level errors and 426
warnings. […] The Philippines Web Accessibility group is an example of how a group providing accessibility
assistance can have a positive impact on effective Web design for those with disabilities.”
6.
In 2006, one of the 20 Countries applying Best Practices by UN Global Audit on Web Accessibility
T
RANSFERABILITY
, S
CALABILITY AND
C
OST
-E
FFICIENCY
The policy is funded by the government. The text is short and precise, hence, can be easily read, understood and
implemented by web designers and content managers. Furthermore, Philippines’ policy built a set of web accessibility
standards that are relevant to the country and that are achievable given their limited economic resources. To simply
adopt the WAI standards would not only have been more expensive, but it would also discourage moving toward
accessibility in the first place. An important lesson was that accessible web development will actually save money, if it is
incorporated in new web developments. Remediating inaccessible websites, on the other hand, costs more than many
organizations are willing to invest, and requires a long time to complete. So, remediation is being phased in with new
web development, such as when websites shift from HTML to Content Management systems.
F
UTURE
D
EVELOPMENT
(W
ITH
A
DDITIONS FROM THE
Z
ERO
P
ROJECT
T
EAM
)
The Joint Circular No. 1 has been included in the Implementing Rules and Regulations in 2015-2016 of Administrative
Order 39
of 2013.
A critical number of top executives need to be educated on their role on how they can influence their staff to be aware
and knowledgeable in making information accessible for all. Information accessibility is not only a technical issue that
can be resolved by technicians, but it is more so a political issue that can be only addressed through a strong political
will coming from the top government hierarchy.
W
EBSITE
:
(
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
)
Full text of Accessible Web Design Guidelines Joint Circular No. 1, series of 2010: