MANILA, 11 April 2004 — An advocate for migrant workers' rights urged overseas Filipinos who have registered in the first Philippine absentee voting abroad to go out and vote and help make a difference.
"Let's hope and pray that our overseas Filipino voters will see the overseas absentee voting process till the end despite the problems and difficulties they have to go through," said Ellene Sana, executive director of the Center for Migrant Advocacy (CMA).
Sana, a member of the International Coalition for Overseas Filipino Voting Rights (ICOFVR) and a prominent advocate for absentee voting, said it would be a crime to waste this opportunity.
Various absentee voting advocates had repeatedly voiced their worries about the "ningas cogon" mentality Filipinos are known for, so-called for their enthusiasm that easily wane like brushfires.
Advocates noted that after fighting for about 17 years for a law allowing absentee voting, less than 400,000 have registered out of an estimated 4 million or so overseas Filipinos.
Of 363,965 who signed up during the August-September 2003 registration period, 358,669 were confirmed as eligible to vote by the Commission on Election (Comelec).
In a meeting between the Filipino community in Saudi Arabia and the Philippine Embassy staff on April 2, Vice Consul for Political Affairs Adrian Cruz said there are 97,000 registered voters in the Kingdom.
Cruz said they have requested the Comelec to fast track the production of voters ID's and but emphasized that these are not requirements. The Overseas Absentee Voting Secretariat said that any identification card with a photograph or signature of the registrant will be accepted. All registered voters whose names appears in the Comelec lists are allowed to vote.
He added that voting precincts on weekends (Thursday and Friday) will be double those open on weekdays. The community is being requested to help provide support for the exercise in terms of manpower (volunteers marshals to oversee the actual voting, guides and escorts for voters) and logistics (food for the volunteers, transportation for voters, etc.).
Cruz also said more volunteers on a stand-by basis will also be needed during the other periods in the exercise. The embassy has dissected the entire process into 4 categories the pre-voting, voting, counting and canvassing periods.
Absentee voting actually began last March 11 with some 2,300 Filipino seafarers becoming the first to cast their votes for president, vice president, 12 senators and one party-list representative.
This was the first phase of overseas absentee voting. The second phase begins today.
Two systems of voting are being used for overseas absentee voting: personal voting and voting by mail. Mail voting is allowed for land-based voters in three countries only, the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada.
The OAV Secretariat said one ballot box will be used for each day of the month-long voting period. Each will be sealed at the end of the day to be reopened only immediately before the ballots contained therein are counted.
Manual counting will begin at 3 p.m., Philippine time, on May 10 and the results will be transmitted to the Comelec office in Manila as soon as counting ends.
Catherine Maceda, deputy head of the OAV Secretariat, said 8 voting centers have more than 10,000 registered voters: Hong Kong, Riyadh, Jeddah, Singapore, Al-Khobar, Kuwait, Rome and Abu Dhabi.
