RIYADH, 19 June 2003 ? If you are a Filipino citizen residing abroad and at least 18 years old in May 2004, you are qualified to register as an absentee voter.
? Registration for land-based absentee voters is from Aug. 1 up to Sept. 30, and application for registration can be filed with the Philippine embassies or consulates or foreign service establishments.
? Land-based absentee voters are given 30 days to cast their votes starting March 11 to May 10, 2004. Seafarers can vote from April 10 to May 10, or 60 days of voting period.
? Registered absentee voters cannot vote in the Philippines. They can vote only in the country where they are registered.
These, and many more, were among the basic information shared by two visiting officials of the Philippine Commission on Election (Comelec) during a dialogue with community leaders at the Philippine Embassy on Tuesday.
Executive director Mamasapunod Aguam and executive assistant Luckier Adil came from Abu Dhabi after attending a June 14-15 conference with members of the Philippine foreign service in the Middle East and Africa in regard to the Overseas Absentee Voting (OAV) law.
Ambassador Bahnarim Guinomla, also required his staff to join the discussion so ?we can be educated more on absentee voting law.?
According to Aguam, if a voter is registered in the Philippines under the continuing system of registration, he/she must apply for a certificate of registration as absentee voter.
Passport is required during registration but the Comelec officials said they were allowing substitute documents such as an authenticated birth certificate, marriage certificate, or iqama (national ID) for Filipinos in the Kingdom, where employers keep the passports of their employees.
The question over whether absentee voters could vote in the Philippines was noted because the period of voting ? April to May 10 ? is also the time many Filipinos in the Kingdom go home for vacation.
During the meeting, it was pointed out that OFWs who intend to go on vacation could at least cast their votes as soon as the voting period begins.
According to Alfredo J. Ganapin, a leader of the International Convenors for Overseas Voting Rights in Riyadh (ICOVR), many of those who attended the dialogue expressed their disappointments about the limits imposed on absentee voters in the Kingdom, as reflected in the current OAV law and its implementing rules.
For instance, Ganapin said, since the law allows only for registration and voting in the embassy, consulates and foreign service establishments (honorary consulates), Filipinos in the Eastern Province have to travel to Riyadh as there is no honorary consulate in Alkhobar.
Those in Jizan and faraway places in the Western Region also have to go to Jeddah to register and vote.
The Comelec officials said their role was ?only to implement the law? and that any suggestions should be addressed to the Philippine Congress.
Ganapin said many of these concerns were actually relayed by advocacy groups based in Manila to the Task Working Group (TWG) that crafted the implementing rules but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
The two Comelec officials also met with the community in the Eastern Province and they are to visit Jeddah and Makkah before returning to Manila.
