Comelec to conduct field registration for OFWs

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will set up voter’s satellite registration in malls and churches abroad to encourage overseas Filipinos to register for the 2016 polls.

Comelec Commissioner Lucenito Tagle said that field or mobile registration is one of the strategies that they are implementing to achieve the goal of registering at least one million overseas absentee voters.

“In our various meetings with the Filipino community abroad, they would always say that they don’t have the time, or the Philippine posts are too far so they cannot register or vote. So this time, there will be onsite registration to accommodate them,” he said in an interview.

Under the system, a team will put up satellite registration in places usually frequented by overseas Filipino workers, like malls and churches, especially during their day off.

The Comelec and the Department of Foreign Affairs are targeting at least one million absentee voters abroad to register for the 2016 polls.

Over 700,000 overseas voters took part in the 2013 midterm elections, the poll body said.

Tagle said they have received requests for field registration in areas like Qatar, Abu Dhabi and New York.

He said OFWs have asked the Comelec to consider social media as a tool for registration and voting but the poll body is leaving it up to Congress to decide.

Voter’s registration will run for 17 months or until Oct. 31, 2015. 

“We just hope that people will find time to go to local Comelec offices to register because voting is one of our fundamental rights and we have to exercise that,” Tagle said.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez earlier said that field registration is one of the salient features in the implementing guidelines of the Overseas Voting Act of 2013.