RIYADH, 21 April 2004 — A group of Filipino community leaders here has pooled their resources to provide free transportation for male Filipino absentee voters from Batha to the Philippine Embassy at the Diplomatic Quarter.
Francis M. Maca, chair of the community leaders offering the free rides, said the service is available to everyone, regardless of party affiliation or political persuasion.
"We are doing this to make it easier for our compatriots who may not have rides of their own to go to the embassy and exercise their right of suffrage in this historic Philippine national elections," said Maca.
He said his group will provide a 30-seater bus for this purpose and it will be available every Friday, starting April 23.
He said the group chose Batha area as the assembly point because it is accessible to all Filipino workers coming from any point or direction of Riyadh, he added.
"The bus will load only those with Comelec registration stubs or Voter's ID in order to maximize the effective use of the seating capacity," he said in a news release.
The bus is parked near the old office of Skyfreight Forwarders in Batha starting from 7:30 in the morning. Every time the bus is in its full seating capacity, it will immediately proceed to the embassy.
From the embassy, it will take passengers who have finished voting on their way back to Batha to again bring in another load of Filipino voters.
The last trip from Batha to the embassy is 3:15 p.m., and it will conclude its free transport services from the Diplomatic Quarter to Batha at 6 p.m.
According to the Comelec representative in Riyadh, voters who are inside the embassy compound at 4 p.m. would be accommodated. The voting starts at 8 a.m.
Francis M. Maca during office hours. His landline at the office is 230-0000 extension 224 or 225 while his mobile phone is 05078-63414.