Cebu City cops to learn ASL

THE Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) has found a way to make it easier for deaf mutes and other persons with disabilities to report cases of abuse, neglect, exploitation and discrimination to the police.

The CCPO Women and Children’s Protection Desk has started a six-week American Sign Language (ASL) program for personnel and volunteers to allow them to communicate with deaf-mute victims.

The personnel are also being taught on how to ask deaf-mute victims the proper questions.

According to Senior Inspector Jeremie Sheila Gurtiza, chief of CCPO’s women’s desk, a lot of abused people who suffer from some form of disability do not come for help due to difficulties in communication.

“We had been informed of unreported incidents involving deaf-mutes who are victims of abuses, neglect, exploitation, and discrimination, and they were not able to report it to the proper authorities because of communication problems, specifically on the part of the police officers because we do not know how to communicate (with them),” Gurtiza said.

Police officers from selected units of CCPO such as the Theft and Robbery Section, Homicide, and the Tourist Police would also soon be equipped with basic ASL knowledge since these are the units often approached by victims of crime.

Gurtiza said she learned about the dilemma of deaf-mute victims when she attended a forum organized by a PWD (persons with disability) organization.

Several deaf-mutes, she was told, had needed assistance but did not get to report the incidents to the police because the officers could not understand them.

The ASL instruction is being conducted by Dr. Alfredo Acuña, a certified sign language teacher and a former ASL translator of ABS-CBN.

Gurtiza said that their goal after the program is to set up a PWD assistance desk in every police station in Cebu City.