While other senators are preoccupied with the race for the Senate presidency, reelected Senator Lito Lapid is concerned with the plight of lefthanded persons.

While other senators are preoccupied with the race for the Senate presidency, reelected Senator Lito Lapid is concerned with the plight of left-handed persons.

Lapid has filed a bill that will provide equal opportunities to left-handed persons in the country, especially school children who are having problems in using equipment for right-handed people.

“Every day, left-handed people struggle in a right-handed world. There are many different factors in the environment that may pose problems to left-handed people. The problem is that the majority of people is right-handed and various products and tools are often made for right-handed individuals without any thought of being put into whether or not it will work for a left-handed person,” Lapid said explanatory note to Senate Bill 31.

“Being left-handed can sometimes be a drag. This is because almost all hand-held devices, such as tools, have been designed with a right-handed individual in mind,” Lapid said.

The senator from Pampanga cited research that indicates that at least 20 million people in the United States are left-handed and that there are 500 million left-handers on the planet.

He cited a recent study in the US that showed that the number of people who primarily use their left hand is on a steady rise.

“If you don’t happen to be left-handed yourself, you likely know someone who is,” Lapid said, noting that three candidates who ran in the 1992 U.S. presidential election — George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot — were left-handed.

Lapid said he was concerned with left-handed school children who experience difficulty in studying because schools usually have right-hand desks.

Left- handed students also have a hard time when it comes to sitting at a table with right-handed students because they constantly rub elbows with them.

“Even writing poses a problem for left handed individuals because they always move their hand across what they have just written and it smudges the ink all over the paper, and gets smeared on their hands as well,” Lapid said.

“The most common and serious problems left-handers face in school are: Forcing a left-hander to switch to the right hand may precipitate the onset of serious learning disorders; improper instruction on how to position paper and pencil can lead to awkward, uncomfortable, and slow writing,” Lapid said.

In his bill, Lapid wants to establish a Philippine Handedness Research and Training Institute, as an attached agency to the Department of Science and Technology, to advance the scientific knowledge of left-hand and right-hand practices, and help social and educational discrimination of left-handers through research, education and advocacy.

Under the bill, the Department of Education, in coordination with the Commission on Higher Education, will implement rules and regulations to ensure that schools provide left-handed desks, and education materials in relation to the percentage of left-handed people in the student population.

The school materials should also include sport materials as well as equipment involving music and arts.