Imee seeks deferment of absentee voter registration

Ilocos Norte Rep. Imee Marcos has asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to defer the August-September schedule for the registration of Filipino voters in Europe.

In a letter to Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos, Marcos said it will be summer in Europe on August and September and employers of Filipinos usually bring them along when they go on their annual vacation to other countries.

Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople said only about two million of the estimated eight million overseas Filipinos are expected to register for the absentee voting system.

Ople said the Department of Foreign Affairs scaled down the number of expected voters since diplomatic missions cannot, in reality, cover the entire Filipino overseas population.

There are only about 80 Philippine embassies and consulates abroad.

Ople, however, said Philippine foreign service posts are prepared to conduct the voters’ registration.

Marcos, who had just arrived from a week-long consultation with OFWs in Paris, France, said thousands of Filipinos in Europe would not be able to register and vote in next year’s elections if the registration period is not adjusted.

"If we insist on this period, thousands of Filipino domestic workers would be deprived of the opportunity to register and eventually exercise their right to vote," she said.

"If this would be the case, then the new law would be for naught."

Under Republic Act 9189, the Absentee Voting Act of 2003, OFWs would have to register from August to September this year to be able to vote in the 2004 elections.

Marcos said OFWs in Europe are also complaining that consulates and embassies, which will serve as venues for registration, are "quite" far from their places of work.

"Filipino workers have remote access to few consulates situated in Italy and in Europe generally," she said.

"In the case of Rome and Milan in Italy, where most of these Filipino migrants and domestic workers are based, the consulates are more than 600 kilometers apart. This again works to the great disadvantage of our OFWs."

Mobile units could be deployed to help in the registration process or the honorary consul system broadened to solve the problem of distant registration areas, she added.

Marcos said the Comelec has also failed to explain to seamen how they could register and vote while they are assigned aboard a ship.

Under the law, Filipino seamen must register at the port where they have embarked during the registration period.

Last April, a militant group warned that millions of overseas Filipinos worldwide would not be able to vote in next year’s elections

Poe Gratela, chairman of Migrante International, said the "selective implementation" of the absentee voting law would disenfranchise many Filipinos abroad.

Quoting Abalos, Gratela said absentee voting might be limited to Filipinos in the United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, the United States and Canada.

"Filipinos in the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada may vote by mail, while Filipinos in in Singapore, Los Angeles and New York may vote in person," he said.

Gratela said the so-called "selective absentee voting" would spark worldwide protest actions among Filipinos who would be denied their right to vote.

"If selective absentee voting happens, the Arroyo administration will fail to implement the absentee voting law’s real intent," he said. "Under the act, the state is supposed to ensure equal opportunity to all qualified citizens of the Philippines abroad in exercise of this fundamental right." – Pamela Samia, Aurea Calica