Qualified OFWs, seamen voters reach 589,830

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said Thursday that overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and seafarers qualified to vote in the May 10, 2010 polls have reached a total of 589,830 spread out in four continents and more than 100 countries, hence their votes could be crucial in deciding the winning candidates not necessarily for President and Vice President but for the 12 Senate slots and party-list representatives at stake in next year’s major political exercise.

Commissioner Armando C. Velasco, chairman of the Comelec Committee on Overseas Absentee Voting (COAV) said overseas absentee voters are not qualified to vote for members of the House of Representatives and local positions but the impact of their votes could spell the difference between victory and defeat in the senatorial race and party-list elections even if only 70 percent of them would turnout to vote in the country’s first fully automated polls.

Velasco said that in the May 14, 2007 elections, the impact of overseas absentee voting was not visibly felt as the turnout was only 19.24 percent of the 504,110 OFWs who were then qualified to vote much lower than the 45.6 percent turnout in the 2004 presidential, congressional, local and party-list polls.

He said next year’s turnout in overseas absentee voting is expected to rise to 70 or 75 percent because of massive information and education campaign on Republic Act 8189 or “The overseas Voting Act of 2003” conducted by the Comelec in cooperation with the Department of Foreign

Affairs (DFA), the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) and other government instrumentalities.

It is likewise expected that since the positions of President, Vice President and 12 Senators will be at stake, there will be a tremendous increase in the turnout of absentee voting in countries where there are Filipino workers.

Velasco said overseas absentee voting next year will be fully automated in HongKong and Singapore while personal voting will be followed by OFWs in other countries.

HongKong and Singapore are among the places where there are big concentration of Filipino overseas absentee voters, it was pointed out.

Of the 589,830 registered overseas absentee voters, 215,546 of them are in the Asia Pacific continent, 61,294 in Europe, 225,148 in Middle East and Africas and 66,743 in North and Latin America. Seafarers who registered under Overseas Voting Act of 2003 reach a total of 21,097. - E.T. SUAREZ, Manila Bulettin, December 17, 2009, 4:14pm