ALKHOBAR/DUBAI, 6 May 2007 — Officials yesterday urged Filipinos in the Middle East who are registered absentee voters to come out and cast their votes before time runs out.

Three weeks have already passed since the overseas absentee voting started but voters’ turnout across Saudi Arabia as of Friday was only slightly more than 10,000, officials conducting the voting exercise said.

The figure is less than seven percent of the total number of Overseas Absentee Voting (OAV) registrants in Saudi Arabia, notwithstanding the efforts of embassy officials and community organizations to persuade registered voters to exercise their right of suffrage.

According to the Philippine Commission on Elections (Comelec), Saudi Arabia has a total of 127,945 registrants, the biggest figure worldwide. Of the number, 58,243 registered in Riyadh, 40,589 in Jeddah, and 29,113 in Alkhobar.

The Philippine Embassy in Riyadh reported a running total of 4,640 voters while the Philippine Consulate in Jeddah closed at 2,708. There were 2,655 voters in all who turned out at the International Philippine School in Alkhobar (IPSA) during the first three weeks.

Voter turnout in the United Arab Emirates was just as dismal, with only 700 votes cast in Dubai as of Friday evening.

The voters in Kuwait just got past the 4- digit mark in three weeks, with only 1,246 votes cast. Qatar had only 447, Oman had 318, and Bahrain had 255.

In Riyadh, Ambassador Antonio P. Villamor reminded Filipinos that suffrage is not only a citizen’s right but also a voter’s responsibility to family and country.

“We would like to remind our kababayans that the country’s political future is in your hands, and you can only shape that future if you go out and vote,” he said.

Rose Justiniano, the action person at the Philippine Consulate in Jeddah, told Arab News that they were expecting huge number from Yanbu. “However, due to the distance maybe, they were not able to make it yet,” she said.

She said the common problem of OFWs leaving in far-flung places is transportation, she said, noting that a round trip by land between Yanbu and Jeddah takes eight hours.

In Alkhobar, Labor Attaché Delmer Cruz said that his conservative forecast might be 5,000 voters only until May 14, unless a bigger number appears in the next few days.

The total output from Alkhobar in 2004 was 60 percent.

This time, a 20 percent turn-out is even somewhat unachievable, according to Cruz. In the 2004 elections when the OAV was first held, there were more than 96,000 registrants in the Kingdom but only about 60 percent voted.

He said that figure was added to the new registrants for a total of 127,945, but there is a possibility that some of the old registrants are no longer in the Kingdom.

“Most of the registered voters were a carry over from the 2004 elections and that maybe most of them were already transferred to other countries or went home for good,” Cruz clarified.

Still, officials were hoping for the Filipinos’ “last minute magic” to work just the same so that Saudi OFWs could hold on to the distinction of having the most number of OAV ballots cast.

Filipinos are notorious for doing nothing when there’s plenty of time and rushing during the last day in everything they do.

“Filipinos are really known to beat the last day of voting,” lawyer Kabaitan Guinhawa-Valmonte, the Comelec representative in the Dubai.

While wishing for the “magic” to work, Cruz and Valmonte urged registered voters not to wait for the last day.

“We really encourage them to cast their votes now instead on the last day,” Valmonte appealed.

Cruz said the problem with voting during the last day is that one has to suffer long lines and those who come later could run out of time.