MANILA, 24 July — A conglomeration of overseas Filipino groups based in Europe has asked President Gloria Arroyo to muster the political will and get Congress to enact the oft-promised measure allowing migrant Filipinos to vote in the country's national elections.
"We believe that the main reason for this inexcusable delay and denial of our rights comes down to the lack of political will callously and cynically demonstrated during the term of three presidents since the fall of Marcos," said groups in a letter to the president.
Locally represented by the Kapisanan ng mga KamagAnak ng Migranteng Manggagawang Pilipino or Kakammpi, the coalition, includes OFW groups from the Netherlands, Greece, Spain Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy.
"We call on you as the president of the Philippines to express our sentiments of anger and disgust at the failure of Congress to decisively enact absentee voting legislation," the coalition said in an open letter to Arroyo.
"Add your voice to ours, to our families, to our supporters and those lawmakers willing to fight for us in Congress demanding that all our senators and congressional representatives fulfill their constitutional responsibility," they said.
After all, they added "during last year's SONA (State of the Nation Address) you asked Congress to enact a law giving overseas Filipinos who play a critical role in the country's economic and social stability, the right to vote."
Kakammpi also threatened to campaign for withdrawal of support for legislators who are not willing to support the measure.
It said the refusal of senators and congressmen to enact an absentee voting bill is deplorable, considering that overseas Filipinos are guaranteed the right to suffrage by the Philippine Constitution.
Kakammpi said what makes this deliberate congressional inaction more deplorable is that while absentee voting is an accepted practice in 40 other countries, including new democracies such as Indonesia, the right to vote is being denied to Filipinos abroad whose remittances continue to keep the Philippine economy afloat in hard times.
"We are tired of being fed the same lame excuses; excuses made even lamer by the actions that exhibit neither sincerity, nor commitment," said Kakammpi, which is trying to drum up support for the measures pending in Congress.
The group noted that various lawmakers have filed a total of 64 different versions of the absentee voting bill over the last 15 years.
"We have helped craft the bills now pending before both houses, assiduously attended countless working group meetings and legislative consultations, in country and abroad," it said in a statement.
Unfortunately, it said, "our efforts have yielded an absentee voting bill that now rots on the legislative shelf simply because some legislators choose to default on their duty to study the proposals, or make any, even as a sincere gesture towards crafting a truly good law!"
