JEDDAH, 17 April 2004 — Notice to all registered absentee voters: Any act of campaigning or any material showing signs of partisanship are banned inside polling places.
A Commission on Election (Comelec) official issued this reminder yesterday after a group of workers wearing shirts rooting for presidential candidate Eddie Villanueva arrived at the Philippine Consulate to cast their votes.
The group came attired in bright yellow shirts with the television evangelist’s picture and name, attracting the attention of other voters.
Tension arose when poll officials ordered the Villanueva partisans barred from entering the polling precincts.
Executive Director Mamasapunod Aguam, the Comelec officer supervising the absentee voting exercise in Jeddah, explained that even caps, vests or any related material suggesting partisanship are absolutely not allowed within restricted polling areas.
The group insisted that they came just to cast their votes, not to campaign.
“We were not campaigning. Besides we didn’t know that even a T-shirt like this is not allowed here,” carpenter Bernie Estevan told officials in Tagalog.
Estevan and some of his colleagues were able to cast their votes after borrowing shirts from their friends.
But aircon technician Ely Monterey was not able to make it even after reversing his T-shirt because Villanueva’s marks were still evident. He was politely asked by volunteers of the National Movement for Free Elections, or Namfrel, to go home to change his shirt.
Namfrel volunteers, mostly from the Overseas Filipino Workers Cooperative Council (OFWCC), are serving as watchers to ensure a peaceful and orderly conduct of the Philippines’ first overseas absentee voting exercise.
Aguam said the election proceedings in Jeddah have been “very satisfactory” so far. “We are just concerned about the complaints about voters’ IDs,” he said.
Aguam added than an addendum or supplemental list containing 50 more qualified voters are now available at the consulate.
To make up for lack of manpower, the consulate has tapped high school students from the IPSJ and Al-Hekma to assist in the distribution of voters’ IDs.
As expected, polling centers throughout the Kingdom were flooded yesterday with voters, Friday being the rest day for most workers. In Jeddah alone, more than 4,000 have already cast their votes since April 11, according to poll officials. There are 97,000 registered voters in the Kingdom.
