RIYADH/ALKHOBAR/JEDDAH, 22 April 2007 — It’s two from the opposition and one independent candidate that most of the absentee voters in Riyadh have written on their ballots in the ongoing overseas absentee-voting exercise.

Based on an informal survey conducted outside the Philippine Embassy premises on Friday, senatorial candidates Panfilo Lacson, Francis Escudero and Francis Pangilinan are “most likely” to grab slots in the 12 senatorial positions being contested.

Twenty respondents were asked for their top three choices upon their exit of embassy premises after casting their votes. The Commission on Elections bars the conduct of surveys or polls inside polling places.

OFWs in the Eastern Province chose to elect new and younger candidates for senators. Escudero of the opposition and Miguel Zubiri of the administration are the first picks of some voters interviewed by Arab News.

“I voted for Escudero and Zubiri for I believe in their objectives. They are both models for the youth,” Eliyra Palen of Alkhobar said.

Val Garcia of Tanajeeb picked Escudero and Mike Defensor of Team Unity as his bets. “I voted for the young, intellectual and aggressive people to lead the Senate,” Garcia said.

Though the apparent votes were on a 50/50 split both between Team Unity (TU) and Genuine Opposition (GO) candidates, these OFWs decided to drop the so-called traditional politicians (“trapo”) in their ballots.

“We are tired of them. They were there for too long in the Senate and nothing happened. Let us give the seats to the younger generation,” said Francisco Villamor from an advertising company in Alkhobar.

“I’m for Lacson. He’s the only person who stood against the drug problems in our country,” according to Nathaniel Labao of Tanajeeb.

Pangilinan, Prospero Pichay, Manny Villar, Joker Arroyo, and Gringo Honasan, were among the other names mentioned by voters.

But surprisingly, Tessie Aquino Oreta gained the respect of some voters when she made her “I am sorry” speech in her campaign ad.

“I believe she meant to ask forgiveness from the Filipino people, and I voted for her,” Arman Gonzales of Alkhobar said.

Absentee voters can choose from 12 senators and vote for one party list representative in the current Philippine national election.

Absentee voting will run for a month until the opening of ballots and final counting on May 14 simultaneous with the counting of votes in the Philippines on same day.

Completing the result of the Riyadh exit poll were Joker Arroyo with 5 votes, Antonio Trillanes IV with 4 votes and Loren Legarda with 3 votes. The rest of the candidates got either one or two votes each. It was noted that not a single respondent voted for “senatoriables” from show business like Tito Sotto, Cesar Montano and Richard Gomez. Only two of the respondents voted party-list representative.

A group of nurses from a government hospital, who did not want to be identified, said that the majority of them had voted overwhelmingly for the administration’s Team Unity bets because they (candidates) presented clear platforms.

They added that most of the opposition senatoriables are just riding on the “oust GMA” issue.

Sample ballots of the Genuine Opposition and calendar-type ballots of Team Unity were distributed by some men outside the embassy.

Cross-Listed Voters Allowed to Vote

Registered voters in the Eastern Province whose names were mistakenly listed in Riyadh will now be allowed to cast their votes at the International Philippine School in Alkhobar (IPSA).

This was announced by Labor Attaché Delmer Cruz, the focal person of the Overseas Absentee Voting (OAV), here in Alkhobar.

Cruz said that Florentino Tuason, chairman of the committee on overseas absentee voting, has approved the manual system of listing, tagging, transmitting and crosschecking of the names of voters for the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh and at the IPSA voting center.

This allows the voter, as long as his name is in the Certified List of Overseas Absentee Voters (CLOAV), to vote at IPSA or in Riyadh.

The letter, which was addressed to Undersecretary Rafael Seguis of the Department of Foreign Affairs, also approved the same situation with the voters at the Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the Philippine Consulate in Dubai.

Because of this, there were 34 registered voters here whose names appeared on the list of Riyadh who were already allowed to vote at IPSA in the first week of the election, according to Cruz.

Last week, some voters complained that their names did not appear in Alkhobar list and were instead directed to go to Riyadh to cast their votes.

This same situation happened in the 2004 presidential elections, but, Comelec decided to let the registered OFWs vote through a tagging system where the Special Board of Election Inspectors (SBEI) will immediately notify the other voting center that a certain registered voter and had cast his vote.

Turnout Still Low Compared to 2004

Poll observers had expected a slight surge in voters this weekend, but it did not materialize.

Voter fatigue and the fact that many voters waited until the last minute to vote were mentioned as possible reasons for the low turnout.

One week into the monthlong voting period, the turnout of Filipino voters in the Kingdom was still much lower than in the last election in 2004. Some estimates put it at only 20 percent of the earlier election for the same period.

Vice Consul Gerardo Abiog, head of the special concerns unit in Riyadh, pointed out that enthusiasm of voters in 2004 “was higher” because, aside from being the first time to vote then, absentee voters were voting for president and vice president.

At the close of Friday, only 652 OFWs had voted at IPSA, 808 at the Philippine Consulate in Jeddah, and 1,403 in Riyadh.

Some community groups are trying to increase the turnout by encouraging Filipinos to vote and organizing transportation to polling centers.

In Riyadh, Future Generation Philippine International School will be dispatching one of its school buses to transport absentee voters from downtown Bat’ha to the Philippine Embassy starting next Friday.

In Jeddah, the Philippine Guardians Brotherhood, Inc. (PGBI) said they wanted to encourage Filipinos in the Kingdom to exercise their right to select the next 12 senators and a party list representative.

“Let’s vote and elect the next leaders who will shape our future and our country,” said PGBI Jeddah Regional President Mel Gamet.

“I am calling on our kababayan (compatriots) here in Taif to come down and vote,” was the appeal of Julio Vinluan, of the PGBI Guardians Desert Knights-Taif.

Vinluan also offered a free transportation to those who have no means of transportation.

“For coordination and scheduling, all they have to do is to contact our PGBI-Taif headquarters,” he added.

Frank Agana, former PGBI chairman, for his part asked fellow OFWs to help safeguard the ballots to ensure “fair, honest and clean elections.”

“As a Filipino citizen, let us exercise our right of suffrage and protect our votes,” Agana said.

— Dinan Arana from Alkhobar, Francis R. Salud from Jeddah and Bien Custodio from Riyadh contributed to this report