CBCP: Focus on overseas votes

Calling all poll watchdogs: It’s time to focus on the overseas vote.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (ECMI) called yesterday on all civil society organizations to join them in monitoring and assuring the proper implementation of the Absentee Voting Bill approved the other day by both chambers of Congress.

The new measure grants all overseas Filipinos the right to vote in national elections in the Philippines from the countries where they work and live.

"I call on all civil society organizations to join CBCP-ECMI in monitoring and assuring the proper implementation of the (absentee voting) bill so that the whole country, the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their families, will benefit richly from it," ECMI chairman Bishop Ramon Arguelles said in a statement.

The landmark measure allows, for the first time in Philippine history, some 7.41 million overseas Filipinos to exercise their right to vote.

ECMI recognizes the genuine concerns aired by lawmakers in granting overseas Filipinos the right to vote and the means through which their ballots can be cast.

"After so many years of vain promises and failed assurances, (the legislature has) finally registered in favor of the OFWs and, certainly, their families," Arguelles said.

It took 15 years for the legislature to finally pass a law that upholds the 1987 Constitution’s provision granting overseas Filipinos the right to cast their votes from their host countries.

"It may not be as perfect as many wanted it to be," Arguelles said of the new measure, "but, at last, the long journey of lobbying and advocating has finally borne fruit." – Sandy Araneta