MANILA, 13 February 2003 — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is expected to sign today the absentee voting law (AVL) which will allow over seven million overseas Filipinos to vote in Philippine elections.
Under the measure, all qualified Filipinos abroad, including immigrants and permanent residents, would be allowed to vote for a president, vice president, senators and party-list congressmen in the 2004 elections.
Opposition Sen. Edgardo Angara, the main sponsor of the bill in the Senate, said that the AVL was one of the most difficult measures he had sponsored in almost 15 years of his career as legislator.
The bill was co-authored by Senate President Franklin Drilon and Sen.
Aquilino Pimentel Jr.
“It was not an easy measure. There were those who, until the end, did not believe in absentee voting,” he said.
The separate Senate and House of Representatives versions of the bill was reconciled through by a bicameral conference committee that held several controversial meetings.
House panel head Rep. Apolinario Lozada Jr. described the meetings as “very civil” although the two versions were widely divergent.
There were in fact reports of a couple of shouting matches between the lawmakers over the inclusion of immigrants in the absentee vote.
“Excluding the immigrants or permanent residents in foreign countries from this right would defeat the intent of absentee voting, mandated by the Philippine Constitution, which is to allow overseas Filipinos to exercise their right of suffrage,” Pimentel explained.
It was eventually decided to include immigrants for the next (2004) elections, but for succeeding elections, the immigrants and permanent residents of other countries must execute an “affidavit of intent to return and establish physical residence within three years from 2004 elections.”
It was also decided that all the estimated 7.4 million Filipinos overseas will have to register in person at the embassies or consulates or at registered polling centers, of which the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is mandated to add in cases where there are too few embassies or consulates. This will be aided by the system of continuing registration.
Voting by mail has been allowed in only three countries where the mailing system is reliable. These are Japan, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Voting will have to be done personally elsewhere although land-based OFWs have one month to vote and sea-based OFWs have ninety days.
“Postal voting will be on pilot-testing and may be expanded (or restricted) by an oversight committee after the 2004 elections,” Angara said in an interview.
Personal campaigning abroad has been allowed, as well as on-site counting or done simultaneously with counting in the Philippines, regardless of differences in time zones.
Overseas Filipino organizations will be allowed to participate in the absentee voting process in that they can engage in the broadest and widest information dissemination campaigns and even apply for accreditation as election watchdogs.
