Undocumented OFWs can register--Comelec

By Veronica Uy
INQUIRER.net
Posted date: February 12, 2009

MANILA, Philippines—Almost two weeks into the registration for overseas absentee voting, only 2,045 have enlisted in the 93 foreign posts as of February 11, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Thursday.

At the re-launch of the registration center at the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Special and Ocean Concerns Rafael Seguis said the turnout was still far from the one million target overseas registrants for the 2010 elections.

Elections Commissioner Nicodemo Ferrer said 123,220 had been de-listed from the certified list of voters of some 500,000 as of 2007 after they failed to vote in the last two polls.

He said they could enlist again during the registration period, which runs until August 31 this year.

The commissioner in charge of OAV said undocumented workers, which government estimates put at almost a million, may also register.

Seguis said he remained optimistic that with intensive information drive the one million target would be reached. He was hoping the POEA OAV registration center would enlist five to six times more than the 39,223 that it registered for 2007 polls.

Seguis, who chairs the DFA's OAV Secretariat, called on all qualified overseas Filipinos to register in the next six months and "participate in the nation's political process even if they are miles away from home."

Ferrer attributed the low turnout to the voting requirement on Filipino-Americans to return to the Philippines in three years. He said Comelec was proposing to either do away with the requirement or change it to seven years.

Asked about the problems being encountered in the overseas registration, the election official said some cameras of the data-capturing machines were breaking down.