Right to vote

JAPAN — While our country prepares for the May 10 elections, giving foreigners in Japan their right to vote for local and regional elections is now a very hot issue being debated and contested.

Although the foreign population constitutes only about less than 2% of the total population in Japan, this translates to more than a million foreigners now located throughout the various prefectures of Japan.

The plan, which was advocated by some of Japan's leaders, was to grant local and regional, but not national suffrage, to permanent residents and their descendants.

Chinese and ethnic Koreans constitute the biggest foreign groups in Japan. The Brazilians, Filipinos and Peruvians are the next three largest.

Threat to national sovereignty is often heard among those who oppose giving even limited suffrage to the foreign permanent residents. Foreigners are still considered as dangerous, as grave threats to national security by a number of Japanese.

In a big rally held recently, one Japanese political leader was quoted as saying he opposed allowing foreigners to vote as they do not pay taxes to the Japanese government.

The negative comments hurled against the foreigners are not shared by all Japanese, however. In a poll conducted by a Japanese newspaper, the Mainichi Shinbun Daily, those who favored giving local suffrage to foreigners (51%) outnumbered those who opposed the idea (31%).

It is also not true that foreigners do not pay taxes at all. All those who are engaged in work in Japan, whether properly documented or non-documented workers, have taxes automatically deducted from their wages. It is also not true that foreigners drain Japan of resources that should rightly go to the Japanese nationals.

Foreigners provide labor and services where Japanese labor is in short supply, especially due to a rapidly aging population. Foreign labor not only helps Japan construct roads, bridges and other infrastructures. Foreigners in Japan pay for their housing, food, utilities and other needs, thereby contributing their consumer share to Japanese economy.

Foreigners who have intermarried with the Japanese, especially in the rural areas, are contributing somehow to population replacement. Not only are the foreigners helping to revive communities, churches and NGOs in Japan have also been energized by the presence of foreigners among their constituencies and clients.

While the protesters may project the image of a very protective Japan, there are local governments, however, that have allowed for foreigners in their areas to actively participate and be elected in their local councils.

Whether the Japanese Parliament will finally allow local suffrage to all foreign permanent residents all throughout Japan will be an event worth following and observing in the days to come. The decision about local suffrage will be very important for the more than 200,000 registered Filipinos in Japan and their descendants.

Meanwhile, as the debates about local suffrage for foreigners proceed in Japan, the outcome of the May elections back home will and should attract our utmost attention and vigilance.

* * *

Email: [email protected]