Registration of Pinoy overseas voters lags behind 1M target

WHILE the number of registered overseas absentee voters increased this year, it is still far behind the one million target for next year’s polls.

As of July 23, 143,846 overseas Filipinos have registered, the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Overseas Absentee Voting Secretariat reported over the weekend.

The number surpassed the combined overseas absentee voters in 2005 and 2006 that totaled 142,667.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis remains optimistic that more Filipinos abroad will register before the August 31 deadline.

As of July 23, Hong Kong still has the most number of new absentee voters (14,259), followed by Los Angeles (8,406), Dubai (7,998), Singapore (6,300) and London (4,734). The top 10 includes Riyadh (4,588), Toronto (4,254), New York (4,130), Tokyo (3,414) and Washington (3,241). — Llanesca T. Panti, Manila Times