MANILA, 28 August 2006 — A senator yesterday urged foreign affairs and election officials to step up the information campaign on absentee voting among overseas Filipinos to correct the “misconceptions” about this scheme, which he blamed for the low turnout of registrants.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr. said the very low number especially of US-based Filipinos registering for the Overseas Absentee Voting (OAV) exercise can be partly traced to wrong understanding that discourage them from availing of this privilege.
The Philippine Congress enacted the OAV law, which President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed in 2003, to enable overseas Filipinos to exercise their right to vote in the country’s national elections.
While a significant number of Filipinos in Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and other parts of the Middle East registered and voted in the 2004 elections, the turnout in the United States — where there are more than 2 million Filipinos — was dismal, slightly over 10,000.
Pimentel said that in Los Angeles alone, where there is a heavy concentration of Filipinos, only 416 signed up for absentee voting in 2004. In the ongoing registration for the 2007 elections, there were only 47 registrants so far, he said.
Pimentel said Filipinos in the US are afraid of the requirement under the OAV law that they should re-establish their residence in the Philippines before they can be eligible to vote in Philippine elections.
They are also apprehensive of being subjected to double taxation, the senator from Mindanao said.
Due to poor response from OFWs, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) announced that it has scaled down to only 120,000 to 130,000 the expected number of new registrants for absentee voting for the purpose of the 2007 elections. These will be added to the 360,000 total absentee voters who had earlier registered and participated in the 2004 elections.
The Comelec also extended the registration period by one month so that the entire registration period began Oct. 1, 2005 and will end Sept. 30, 2006.
Pimentel said US-based Filipino immigrants are presumably not yet aware that the Supreme Court, in a recent ruling, scrapped the requirement of reestablishing residence for dual citizens.
“They are afraid that if they go back to the Philippines and reestablish their residence, their status as US immigrants may be jeopardized. But I told them this requirement has already been removed by the Supreme Court in the case of dual citizens,” Pimentel explained.
The Dual Citizenship Act, which took effect in 2005, allows those who have acquired foreign citizenship to regain their Filipino citizenship.
Pimentel said the second concern of Filipino not only in the US but also in other countries is that they may find themselves being required to pay taxes both in the country where they are based and in the Philippines. “I explained to them that will not happen because there are existing bilateral agreements against double taxation between the Philippines and various countries where there are OFWs,” he said.
Pimentel said that the income earned by OFWs abroad will no longer be subjected to tax by the Philippine government. But he said if they are maintaining businesses in the Philippines, that is the only time they will be required to pay income tax.
