MANILA, 3 April 2003 - President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday assured overseas Filipinos that they will vote in next year's national election despite financial constraints.
Arroyo gave the assurance after the Commission on Elections said it had suspended all preparations for the implementation of the Absentee Voting Law, which would allow Filipinos abroad to participate in Philippine national elections for the first time.
Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos had said the agency could not proceed with the preparations because Congress has failed to provide at least 400 million pesos for that purpose in the still pending 2003 national budget.
But the president said she will make sure that there will be money for the exercise.
"The government will do its best to help our overseas Filipinos. We are studying all options and we are working with Congress on how to be able to hurdle these constraints," the president said.
News of the Comelec's suspension order was met with denunciations from OFWs.
Alfred Ganapin, a veterinarian in Riyadh and co-convenor of the International Coalition for Overseas Filipinos' Voting Rights (ICOFVR), challenged the legislators to come up with the one billion pesos needed for the implementation of the law.
"On the news that there's not enough budget for absentee voting, you can call it a Scud missile that we the OFWs will answer with a Patriot," Ganapin said in response to e-mailed questions.
"Seriously now, this should put to test the political will of our legislators from both Houses who reportedly have agreed to a budget of one billion for implementing the overseas absentee voting," he said.
Philippine-based Noel Esquela, chair of the board of the Center for Migrant Advocacy, said legislators assured OFWs that there would be sufficient funds.
"(Some lawmakers) told us that they will realign some funds (in the 2003 budget) inserted in several departments," he said. "They said there is also the possibility of passing a supplementary budget for the purpose."
Another member of ICOFVR, Mike Bolos, a finance executive in Saudi Arabia, said: "I could not imagine even in the wildest of my imagination that after all the efforts, years and tears that it took to get the law passed, it will just get derailed at the finish line just because of bureaucracy and the inability of our public servants to get their acts together."
Overseas Filipinos also blamed the poll body.
Ganapin said, "It took 16 years for our legislators to come up with the Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2003 only to be scuttled at the eleventh hour by Chairman Benjamin Abalos, who didn't seem to have a scintilla of interest even before the law was passed."
Bolos said: "I do not believe that after what we went through to get the law passed that we will just take it sitting down. There will be retribution to follow if our long-awaited dream to exercise our right of suffrage is derailed. How and when, I do not know, but there certainly will be."
