MANILA/RIYADH, 4 September 2003 — Absentee voting registrants in the Kingdom has increased 97.65 percent compared to the first week of registration when only 389 bothered to sign up.
Figures compiled by the Overseas Absentee Voting Secretariat (OAVS), registration at the embassy in Riyadh, the consulate in Jeddah and the satellite center in Al-Khobar totaled 16,405 for the first month of registration.
Catherine Maceda, vice chair of the OAVS said, there were only 389 registrants during the first week of registration so Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Saudi Arabia have apparently picked up the pace.
In fact, she said that the posts in Riyadh and Jeddah were the second and third top performers (next to Hong Kong) in registration figures. Hong Kong remains the top performer as 39,371 Filipinos have signed up there.
Maceda, who briefed incoming OAVS Chairman (and former ambassador to Indonesia) Rafael Seguis, once also Philippine ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said the total registration trend has been climbing for the past few weeks.
For the first three weeks of registration, Maceda said there was an average weekly increase of 30 percent and of this, registration at Hong Kong was already 53 percent of its target 126,000.
She said the top performers were Hong Kong, Riyadh, Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, Rome, Singapore, Athens, Brunei, Tokyo and Kuwait.
Of these, Brunei had the highest registration rate of 58 percent versus the target of 7,000.
The actual registration rate for the third week of registration was 3,047 compared to 1,808 during the first week. According to Maceda, this indicated an average weekly increase of 30 percent per week.
She said if the daily registration level is maintained until September 30 or for the remainder of the registration period, a total of 331,834 overseas Filipinos will register worldwide. However, if the registration rate is maintained at 3,047 weekly, total registrants will only number 163,110.
Community Groups Play Key Role
In Riyadh, Vice Consul Adrian Cruz credited the increase in the number of registrants to the support of various community organizations who have been helping in the information drive by visiting companies and providing primers on the OAV.
Cruz said community groups are also playing a key role in visiting or spearheading functions and gatherings of OFWS to talk about the registration process, producing brochures, e-mailing and texting Filipinos on the registration process.
Some 1,200 Filipinos logged in at the gates of the embassy on Friday in the 2-month registration period, which ends on September 30.
The Insurance Hospital, which employs a big number of Filipinos, was one of the companies asked by the embassy to send its Filipino employees for registration. It sent the first batch, composed of 50 workers with their original passports and filled-out registration forms.
Saudi Oger, Hoshanco, and Al-Babtain are some of the big companies the group of Calabarzon had encouraged to send their Filipino workers for registration.
Calabarzon president Rene Caseda admitted that it is not easy to “encourage” people to participate in the exercise.
“To fully persuade our kababayan, you must be tactful in explaining contentious points and be accepting of the diverse viewpoints especially those of the cynics,” he added.
Beware of Unscrupulous Translators
Cruz said that the embassy has issued earlier a press release stating that services related to the OAV registration are free, which was included in the notice of registration faxed to the companies, along with the letter of Ambassador Bahnarim Guinomla urging their Filipino workers to register.
“The embassy is likewise investigating the allegations that some unscrupulous individuals are charging for iqama translation,” said Cruz, adding that although allegations are floating around, there is no solid evidence that such an incident had occurred.
He then called on any voluntary assistance from the public “so that this matter could be laid to rest soon.”
In the absence of the original passport or its photocopy, commonly presented in the verification phase are iqama, driver’s license issued in the kingdom, or ID issued by Saudi employers, which need translation.
“Free Photocopy” can also be seen in different posts of the chancery.
On the suggestion to extend the daily registration time to 6 p.m. the vice consul declined to comment since he was not sure whether the staff have still the “energy to meet the demands of an extended registration setup.”
The Comelec delegated embassy personnel to conduct OAV registration without additional compensation.
Cruz described the registration as “a work in progress,” which nobody can ever expect a perfect process, but assured that the Embassy is certain to rectify the mistakes occurred in the early days.
