MANILA, 12 July 2003 — The Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the Overseas Absentee Voting Act, the law that enables Filipinos working or residing abroad to vote in Philippine national elections, was valid.
Voting 9-4, the court denied the motion of election lawyer Romulo Macalintal to declare the law unconstitutional because of the inclusion of immigrants in the coverage of the law.
Macalintal’s motion had cited a constitutional provision limiting voting rights to residents of the Philippines.
The court also voted against the portion of the motion subjecting the actions of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to a Congressional oversight committee.
Absentee voting advocates welcomed the decision but noted that it was a bit anti-climactic.“It’s good the decision came out before the scheduled registration (Aug. 1-Sept. 30) and we are proud we took part in the preparation of the intervention (on behalf of the overseas Filipinos),” said Ellene Sana of the Center for Migrant Advocacy.
“Even if that was upheld, we are not happy with the requirements of the law for a personal appearance,” she said, referring to the provision in the law that says absentee voters will have to personally show up in Philippine embassies or consulates abroad to register and to vote.
She said this requirement was a bigger obstacle than Macalintal’s petition ever was.
The provision had been criticized by OFWs who warned that the provision makes it impractical for many of them to participate in the electoral exercise.
In Saudi Arabia, for instance, tens of thousands of Filipinos in the Eastern Province and far-flung areas in the Central Region find it expensive and time-consuming to go to Riyadh just to register at the Philippine Embassy. Because of this restriction, she said, many OFWs had gotten pessimistic about exercising their right to vote.
Some OFWs even tried to correct this by proposing that a registration booth be set up at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) “where a lot of time is spent waiting for flights anyway.”
In a letter to Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos and Commissioner Florentino Tuason Jr., head of the OAV Committee, Sana said this would be similar to setting up in the malls a booth where taxpayers could settle their accounts with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) as the tax deadline approached. But the suggestion was shot down by the Comelec, which said registration at the airport “is not in the law.”
