The local government of Valenzuela City announced Monday that it will implement a “mandatory renewal” for owners of red persons with disabilities (PWD) identification cards ending in “VC.”

In a social media post, the local government urged PWD ID holders to visit the Persons with Disability Affairs Office at Valenzuela City Hall, bringing their old disability ID, an updated medical certificate, a valid ID and a birth certificate (if the PWD is a minor).

The Valenzuela City Public Information Office said the decision was prompted by an incident where a Valenzuela resident was featured in a news program.

It showed that a restaurant in Rizal had refused to honor the PWD ID of his five-year-old daughter because her ID was not listed in the Philippine Registry for Persons with Disabilities of the Department of Health (DoH).

The local government said the red PWD IDs were issued between 2020 and 2022, but most were not encoded in the DoH database.

The DoH website states its goal is to combat the rise in falsified PWD IDs and to establish a national database for recording and reporting different types of disabilities.

Around 2022, a new PWD ID design was introduced, and these new IDs were encoded in the DoH’s PWD database.

“There is no deadline for the mandatory renewal, and PWD ID holders will receive their new IDs the same day,” Jen Taborda of the Valenzuela City Public Information Office said.

Taborda added that this initiative aims to have a unified design for the identification cards to ensure that legitimate PWDs receive their benefits.