OFW voter registration very low

By Sammy Martin, Reporter
The Manila Times
Saturday, August 08, 2009

The more than two million votes from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) that can be the swing votes for national candidates in the 2010 presidential elections may be in limbo because Congress has not yet amended the Absentee Voting Act of 2001.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) spokesman James Jimenez on Friday said that the law should be amended since it requires migrant Filipino workers to return to the country within three years after exercising their voting rights.

“We have brought this matter to the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee, which has the jurisdiction after the law was enacted, but sorry to tell you that no action on its part [has been taken] until now,” Jimenez told reporters at the Balitaan sa Rembrandt weekly forum.

He said that they are trying to convince the oversight committee to delete the provision that requires overseas Filipinos workers to go home within three years after exercising their right to vote.

According to him, deleting that provision would encourage more migrant Filipino workers to register and vote in the 2010 polls.

Jimenez said that only 159,000 OFWs have complied with the requirement and are ready to exercise their right to vote.

“We haven’t reached 10 percent among the expected two million new absentee voters,” he added. “Our request for amending the measure is sleeping on the table of [he oversight committee] since the Twelfth Congress.”

If a Filipino abroad fails to comply with the requirement to go home within three years after voting, his or her sovereign rights would be temporarily withheld. To regain the sovereign rights, he or she must pass a series of questioning for the rights to be restored.

“There are OFWs who are not documented and they can be traced easily by the host country if they fail to return after three years. Some OFWs have a contract of more than three years especially [the] professionals,” Jimenez said.

With the oversight committee supposedly not acting on the need to amend the absentee voting law, the Comelec expects a minimal turnout of registrants from migrant Filipino workers since their work is more important to them.

Many of them, Jimenez said, are eager to vote in next year’s polls.

He cited a test voting that the Comelec conducted in Singapore in 2007 through the Internet that proved effective.