134,000 Pinoys participate in overseas absentee voting

MANILA, Philippines – A total of 134,000 Filipinos participated in the overseas absentee voting as of yesterday morning, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said.

Comelec Commissioner Armando Velasco said the figure is 23 percent of the total 589,830 absentee voters worldwide.

In Hong Kong, only 35,087 of the 95,000 registered voters cast their votes as of this time, or a 40 percent voter turnout, he said.

In Singapore, voter turnout is low with just 8,611 of 35,000 registered voters having participated in the overseas absentee voting, Velasco said.

Only 16 percent or more than 31,000 of the overseas absentee voters participated in the 2007 polls, while 64 percent of the total registered voters joined the 2004 presidential polls.

Earlier, Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said that they are looking for a higher percentage of votes in this election since it is a presidential election and the process of voting is new.

Meanwhile, voting hours for overseas absentee voting were extended last night to give more registered overseas Filipino voters the chance to cast their ballots.

The Department of Foreign Affairs-Overseas Absentee Voting Secretariat (DFA-OAVS) announced that OAV was extended until 7 p.m. (Philippine time) yesterday.

DFA-OAVS vice chair Nestor Padalhin said circulars to embassies and consulates general were sent to inform them of the extended voting hours.

Earlier, the DFA-OAVS said that they were ready to receive the certificates of canvass from the embassies and consulates general worldwide once all the votes are counted there.

The Philippine Consulate General in Hong Kong received a letter from Smartmatic on May 6 confirming that the installation and functionality of the network infrastructure were completed, and test transmission from the polling precinct there to the Comelec server here in Manila was successful.

Meanwhile, the test transmission from the Philippine embassy in Singapore on Sunday was also successful.

For the foreign service posts that adopted postal or personal voting, a preliminary certificate of canvass will be faxed to the DFA-OAVS to inform them of the results of voting in their area of jurisdiction after the counting of ballots.

The head of the Special Board of Canvassers of foreign service posts with 150 or more voters will fly to Manila to personally deliver the original certificates of canvass, the tally sheets and the original ballots to the DFA-OAVS and the Comelec.

Those with less than 150 voters will deliver the documents through fax, email, special pouch or any other equally safe and reliable means. –Helen Flores (The Philippine Star)