OFWs can run for public office under absentee voting bill

The more than seven million overseas Filipinos expected to register under the major bill on absentee voting can theoretically run for public office and be candidates themselves.

The right covers immigrants and green-card holders who are covered by the broad coverage of the proposed law, according to lawyer Johnas Lamorena, head of the Senate technical working group that helped prepare the absentee voting measure.

"This is a settled legal principle. One who can vote can run for public office," said Lamorena.

Sen. Edgardo Angara, chairman of the Senate committee on constitutional amendments, revision of codes and laws and electoral reforms, last week sought the plenary passage of the landmark measure, which had the distinction of sailing through the committee level with 21 signatures.

Angara is hopeful that the measure will be passed by Congress early June.

Lamorena said that the committee-level measure does not carry a specific provision on the right to run for public office since "the right to vote presupposes the right to run for public office."

Lamorena, however, admitted that the problem "is in the practical application of the right to run for public office."

These problems will most likely be tackled during the plenary debates on the bill, according to Lamorena.

While the measure theoretically gives every overseas Filipino registered as voter the right to run for any office provided all requirements are met, the absentee voter is only allowed to vote for president, vice-president, senator and party-list representatives.

Or, in case of referendums and plebiscites, they can vote on issues of national application.

An absentee voter with no town and congressional district to speak of cannot – in reality – run for mayor or congressman or any elective post that has a defined local turf, according to Lamorena.

The most practical problem is mounting a real political campaign.

Lamorena admits that it will be tough for overseas Filipinos to run for an elective post several thousand miles away from home.

Or, just decide to go home and campaign on a very short notice.

"There are limitations," he said.

Lamorena said that overseas Filipinos – if they choose to run for public office once the bill is passed into law – would fare well in the party-list category.

"This is one arena that is open to them and they can go for it in 2004," he added.