DFA: 550,000 overseas Filipinos cast votes
MANILA, Philippines — Around 550,000 overseas Filipinos cast their votes in this year’s elections, an official from the Department of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday.
Out of nearly 1.7 million registered overseas voters, some 33% or around 550,000, cast their ballots, DFA Overseas Voting Secretariat Director Zoilo Velasco said. The figure may still increase as the canvassing of votes is still ongoing.
According to Velasco, this year’s voter turnout exceeded the 31.45% recorded in the 2016 national elections.
“Masasabi natin na this is a record-high in terms of voter turnout maliban sa noong unang-unang implementation ng overseas absentee voting,” Velasco told state broadcaster People’s Television.
(We can say this is a record-high in terms of voter turnout, except when the overseas absentee voting was first implemented.)
“Talagang napakaganda at successful ng overseas voting despite merong pandemic na nag-limit ng movement ng tao,” he added.
(The overseas voting went well and successfully being being conducted during a pandemic that limited people’s movement.)
According to the DFA official, the following countries had the most number of voters: Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Kuwait, San Francisco, Tokyo, Doha, and Jeddah.
Overseas absentee voting was conducted from April 10 to May 9.
The canvassing is expected to be finished within the week, Velasco said.
Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. is poised to succeed President Rodrigo Duterte, with 31,087,556 votes, based on partial and unofficial tally as of 4:02 p.m. His running mate, Sara Duterte-Carpio, is also the frontrunner in the vice presidential race with 31,542,919 votes. — Gaea Katreena Cabico
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