JEDDAH, 15 May 2007 — Opposition candidates were leading in the senatorial race in the overseas absentee voting in Saudi Arabia, with seven of them making it to the Top 12 against five administration candidates, early results showed last night.

Two of the slots were held by independent candidates, with Francis Pangilinan topping the list for a total of 2,466 votes from about 15 percent of votes cast in the polling centers in Riyadh, Jeddah and Alkhobar as of 8 p.m.

Trailing Pangilinan were Francis Escudero (2,387), Benigno Aquino III (2,349), Manuel Villar (2,320), Loren Legarda (2,255), and Panfilo Lacson (2,165), all of the Genuine Opposition or GO ticket.

Joker Arroyo (2,080) and Ralph Recto (1,956) of the administration Team Unity (TU) ticket placed 7th and 8th, Allan Peter Cayetano also of GO was 9th with 1,898 votes, Miguel Zubiri (TU) was 10th with 1,380 votes, followed by Gregorio Honasan (Ind.) with 1,377 and GO’s Sonia Roco with 1,300.

The 13th to 16th places, which are considered to still have a big chance of catching up, were held by Edgardo Angara (TU) with 1,260 votes, Antonio Trillanes (GO) with 1,243 votes, Michael Defensor (TU) with 1,228, and Aquilino Pimentel III (GO) with 1,190.

Reports compiled from the three polling centers showed a total of 17,091 votes cast in Saudi Arabia.

Of the total, 7,522 voted at the embassy in Riyadh, 5,267 at the consulate in Jeddah and 4,302 at the International Philippine School in Alkhobar.

Consolation

Vice Consul Gerardo Abiog, head of the embassy’s special concerns unit, said the total number of votes cast is just 13 percent of the 127,945 registered Filipino voters in the Kingdom.

Still, Abiog said, the voting percentage in the Kingdom was the highest in the Middle East. No figures were immediately available, but earlier reports by the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Overseas Absentee Voting Secretariat showed a low turnout in all of the voting centers worldwide. As of 6:04 p.m., the Secretariat reported that it had received 73,747 ballots worldwide, or slightly more than 14 percent of the total registration of 504,122 voters.

Despite the general lack of interest in the midterm polls, compared to that of the 2004 presidential election, embassy and consulate officials in the Kingdom, who conducted the month-long voting, said it was worth noting that there was a surge in the number of voters during the last week until yesterday morning.

Rose Justiniano, the officer in charge of election in Jeddah, said more than 100 Filipinos managed to vote during the two hours allotted for voting yesterday. Voting in the Kingdom closed at 10 a.m., which corresponds to 3 p.m. Philippine time, when polling officially ended.

Among those who beat the deadline was a group of 15 OFWs from Hera Hospital in Makkah. Two employees of King Fahd Hospital in Jeddah also rushed in just as the polling precincts were closing, and one of them made it.

Rufina Adeja of Antipolo City, east of Manila, managed to cast her vote at Precinct 1, which extended voting time for 15 minutes because some voters were still not through. Eileen Imadhay of Baguio City was not as lucky. By the time she reached the precinct where her name was located, the ballot box was already sealed.

Except for some minor kinks, no untoward incident or irregularities have been reported so far, according to volunteers of the National Movement for Free Election (Namfrel).

Namfrel has volunteers in all three voting centers, with the team led by Duane Sta. Ana in Alkhobar, Rodel Yap in Riyadh, and Fred Castolome in Jeddah. The overall coordinator in the Kingdom is Ronnie Abeto. (From reports of Dinan Arana in Alkhobar, Chris Lavina in Riyadh and Ronald Concha in Jeddah)