Senate Bill for left-handed people!


I am left-handed. 

With many left-handed students, I had suffered the difficulties of writing using armchairs and notebooks designed for right-handed students. Back then, I just learned to adapt with the right-handed school supplies and how to write with the right hand (the penmanship is utterly hopeless though). Thankfully, my parents are forward-thinkers, in the sense that they never forced me to write or use the spoon with my right hand. They also permitted me to explore different notebook types because the conventional ones were hard to write on for lefties. I'm sure that the other lefties had some way to adapt to the conditions in school.

Lefties are disadvantaged in school, deemed Senator Lito Lapid, who drafted Bill No. 210 called "An Act Instituting a Comprehensive and Holistic Framework and Programs for Left-handers and for Other Purposes" also known as the "Comprehensive Left-handedness Act of 2007".  He refiled this bill in the 15th Congress (2010).


It's interesting to learn that a bill is actually written for us, the left minority. It includes provisions for:
  1. Establishment of a Philippine Handedness Research and Training Institute, which will be attached to the Department of Science and Technology. This institute is designed to understand handedness and to minimise the social and educational "discrimination" of lefties. The quotations are mine. I personally don't feel any discrimination because of my handedness.
  2. Information, education, and communication campaigns for left-handers. The objective of this campaign is to stop people from forcing lefties to learn to write using the right hand and the forced use of right-handed arm chairs. I just find it weird that educational materials have to be developed for teachers to easily identify the lefties. Wouldn't a pencil do?
  3. Celebration of National Handedness Week every first week of September. I don't know what to say!
  4. Left-handed educational materials and facilities. These include left-handed desks and educational materials such as those used in sports, music, and the arts. I couldn't agree more. It's hard to play softball with gloves designed for righties. It may be difficult for a lefty to learn how to play the guitar from a right-handed teacher. It's a challenge to write on a desk designed for righties. 
  5. An annual conference on handedness which will be a venue of communication among school administrators, policy makers, academicians, and others.
Some people, particularly the right-handed ones, may think that the draft is really dumb. However, as a left-handed girl who has gone through the educational system using right-handed tools, I find that I agree with it and I will support it, provided that some improvements be made on the provisions. 

Your thoughts?

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