MANILA, 9 October — An advocate for the passage of the absentee voting bill (AVB) insists that allowing overseas Filipinos to register and vote by mail would not be granting them a special privilege.
"This is not granting them a special deal. This is merely for the convenience of the voters," Noel Esquela, executive director of eLagda and of the International Coalition for Overseas Voting Rights (ICOFVR) said in reaction to a statement of Sen. Joker Arroyo.
The liberal senator had insisted that allowing registration and voting by mail would be like having "two sets of rules," one for local voters and another for overseas Filipinos.
"We cannot give others (overseas Filipinos) what we deny others (local voters)," he argued.
Esquela explained that the provision is needed because registration and voting centers overseas, which would likely be the Philippine embassies or consulates, are not accessible to some OFWs.
Esquela argued that if local precincts are created in all villages of the country for the convenience of local voters, overseas workers should be given the same convenience and should be allowed to vote by mail.
Senator Arroyo had also charged that the registration by mail provision is an invitation to fraud because it requires applicants for voter registration to submit only a photocopy of their passports without personally appearing to have their identity, nationality and residency verified. A document authenticated by the Philippine embassies or consulates would suffice.
"The rules for the locals are very stringent while the rules for those abroad are very loose. No valid distinction can be made out or justified why there should be different standards," Arroyo said.
He explained that the reason why prospective voters are required to appear personally when registering is "designed precisely to prevent the registration of flying voters, fake voters, ghost voters, padded registration lists and double, triple and quadruple registrations."
But Esquela said this provision is apparently not enough to guarantee the absence of fraud because there are millions of flying voters and a large number of padded registration lists still surface during each election.
Registering in person before the local election registrar, as Arroyo proposed, is therefore not a guarantee against fraud, he said.
US-based OFW Pearl Garganera Gauzon, president of the Association of Ilonggos of Metropolitan Washington D.C. Inc., said that "when the 1987 constitutional provision allowed for expatriates to participate in the national elections, I am more than certain that, what the Constitution meant was for voting to be held abroad including registration."
"Why allow Filipino expatriates to vote if it meant first going home to register? Registration in the city/state of the country in which the expatriates lives is where actual registration should be. otherwise, the constitutional provision on expatriates’ right to vote is neutralized," Gauzon said.
Ren Arrieta from Los Angeles said Senator Arroyo "needs to understand the meaning of absentee voting first before he poses his opposition. It is a pity that a human rights lawyer turned politician has loss sight on OFWs human rights that he thinks he is giving us a special privilege when it is not."
