MANILA, 24 May 2003 — The Commission on Election yesterday assured that its officials will hold dialogues on overseas absentee voting with Filipino community groups in Saudi Arabia.
Commissioner Florentino Tuason Jr., head of the Comelec’s absentee voting committee, said the dialogues would be part of the road show that teams from the Comelec and the Department of Foreign Affairs would be holding abroad.
Regional trainings for personnel of the Comelec and the DFA are to be held at San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Rome and Abu Dhabi in preparation for the May 2004 Philippine regular elections, during which overseas Filipinos will be allowed for the first time to participate.
Tusaon explained that the trainings would be for all officials to be deputized by the Comelec for election duties. The regional training in Abu Dhabi is meant for all officials in the Middle East and other nearby countries would have to go there for training.
Tuason said that as part of the road show, several teams are to leave on June 10 for Riyadh and Jeddah as well as cities in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait. The dialogues are meant to prepare community organizations to help the Comelec and DFA during the election.
The Overseas Absentee Voting Act signed by President Arroyo earlier this year allows the Comelec to deputize non-government organizations to help oversee the electoral exercise abroad.
Tuason said the forums will begin as soon as the Department of Budget and Management will release the initial budget for absentee voting on May 27.
No funds have yet been released by the DBM despite Secretary Emilia Boncodin’s assurances that they would hasten the release of the funds for OAV preparations.
“The reason for the delay being given is that the General Appropriations Act (GAA) has not yet been published in the Official Gazette, which is really an excuse and not a valid reason if one considers it,” a member of an overseas Filipino group said.
Despite the delay in release of funds, the OAV Secretariat has drawn up an Environmental Mapping Database of the countries where there are overseas Filipinos.
The secretariat, headed by DFA Undersecretary Rodolfo Brion and Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) Deputy Executive Director Catherine Maceda, has prepared numerous charts on the locations of Filipinos overseas and of the number of potential voters in each country.
The secretariat has estimated that of the 750,000 workers in the Central and Eastern regions and 173,500 in Western Region, only 646,100 will most likely vote.
However, former overseas worker Francisco Aguilar Jr. said these figures were too optimistic. “If the mobile consulate in the Eastern Provinces of Saudi Arabia will not be activated and used for registration and voting, the entire Eastern Region will be disenfranchised,” Aguilar said.
Community organizations in the Eastern Region have been clamoring for a registration and voting center to be put up either in Alkhobar or Dammam, saying that Riyadh is too far and that would discourage participation in the electoral exercise.