MANILA — The Commission on Elections' (Comelec) Vulnerable Sectors Office (VSO) on Tuesday launched 3 new accessible polling places for the upcoming Halalan 2022 in May.

COMELEC Vulnerable Sectors Office will be launching Tahanang Walang Hagdan in Cainta, Rizal as an accessible polling place for #Halalan2022.

A voter's education forum will be held here today.@ABSCBNNews pic.twitter.com/rCsM0GX8JM

— Jervis Manahan (@JervisManahan) March 8, 2022

These are Tahanang Walang Hagdanan in Cainta, Rizal, Hospicio de San Jose in Manila, and National Vocational Rehabilitation Center in Quezon City.

This aims to make the elections more accessible to persons with disabilities (PWDs).

"Very important yung accessibility, kailangan ma-provide ito. This is a band aid solution lang, sana ma-implement ang law that grants accessible polling place in all voting centers in the country," said Maureen Ava Mata, sectoral head for PWDs of Comelec's VSO.

These new polling centers will cater to a limited number of PWDs on election day.

Aside from these, there will be more than 2,100 emergency accessible polling places in 13 regions in the country.

These are rooms located at the ground floor of multi-storey or uphill regular voting centers, which can also be used by pregnant women and senior citizens.

According to Comelec, more than 511,000 voters in the upcoming polls are PWDs.

The VSO also conducted a voter education forum where they answered questions from the workers of Tahanang Walang Hagdanan.

Mata encouraged PWDs around the country to go out and vote on election day.

"To all our PWDs, we have to go out and vote pero dapat nakarehistro tayo, we have to know and avail kung saan tayo boboto. We have options to be in priority lane," Mata said.