Comelec Betrays OFW Voters

by Rodel Rodis
February 1, 2013
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on January 18, 2013 announced that it will remove 238,557 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from the official voters list for “failing to notify the commission of their intent to vote on May 13” after they were given a “last chance” to be retained in the National Registry of Overseas Absentee Voters (NROAV).
The Comelec order is based on the authority granted to it by Section 9.2 of the Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2003 (Republic Act No. 9189) which states that the entries of the OAV voters “shall be permanent, and cannot be cancelled or amended” except when the OAV voter wishes to be removed from the list or “when the overseas absentee voter’s name was ordered removed by the Commission from the Registry of Overseas Absentee Voters for his/her failure to exercise his/her right to vote under this Act for two (2) consecutive national elections”.
The OAV law did not require Comelec to remove the names of any OAV voter who fails to vote in two consecutive national elections; it merely gave Comelec the authority to remove their names if they fail to do so. Comelec has the power to allow the 238,557 OAV voters the right to vote in the May 2013 national elections but simply declined to do so.
Instead, on December 4, 2012, Comelec “promulgated” Resolution 9567, based on the memorandum of Comelec OAV Commissioner Lucenito Tagle, providing that “notice shall be published in two (2) newspapers of general circulation that the list of their name (sic) will be published in the websites of the both the Commission and the DFA with the advise (sic) that, if they wish to remain in the list, they should file a manifestation of their intent to vote in the May 13, 2013 National elections with the different Post (sic) having jurisdiction over their residence or directly with COAV, Manila”. These OAV voters were given until December 21, 2012 to comply.
On December 14, 2012, Comelec “promulgated” Resolution 9578 extending the “manifestation” period from December 21, 2012 to January 11, 2013. According to the resolution, notice about this extension shall be made by “the immediate publication of this Resolution in two (2) newspapers of general circulation.”
By the January 11, 2013 deadline, only 29 out of 238,557 OAV voters filed their “manifestations” and were allowed to vote in the May 2013 elections.
The Comelec website (comelec.gov.ph) contains a message from the sponsor of the resolution disenfranchising OAV voters, Commissioner Lucenito N. Tagle, “the new Chairman of the Committee on Overseas Absentee Voting”. His message proclaims that he “recognizes the importance of each and every vote of every Filipino in the Philippines and anywhere around the globe” and claims that “the Commission did not cease to find ways to provide opportunities for the Filipinos who are abroad to be able to cast their votes and have their voices heard in a very important democratic process.”
Tagle further avers that the Comelec is “determined to hurdle every stumbling block to reach out to our millions of kababayan who have decided to leave the country to seek their fate in another land. It is our objective therefore to inculcate in them the significant role that they play in molding our country’s future- that is in choosing the leaders of our nation.” Commissioner Tagle pledges “to pour greater efforts to make this marriage between the Comelec and our fellow Filipinos abroad strong and robust.”
Atty. Ted Laguatan and I attended the “OAV Summit” held on September 29, 2011 at the Comelec main office in Intramuros, Manila to discuss the Comelec’s avowed goal to register one million OAV voters for the May 2013 national elections during the OAV registration period from October 31, 2011 to October 31, 2012.
At that meeting of “stakeholders” in the OAV voting, Comelec Chair Sixto Brilliantes, Jr. announced that the Comelec “may” be required to remove the names of 246,000 voters from the 589,830 names on the registered OAV list because they did not vote for two consecutive election cycles and, he said, incorrectly, that Philippine law requires their removal.
But, Chairman Brilliantes assured us, the Comelec decided in a recent meeting to just “move their names to a separate list so that if they come to vote in the May 2013 elections and their names are on this other list, they will be allowed to vote.”
Stakeholders at that summit had explained to the Comelec that there are 200,000 Filipinos working on commercial vessels and most of them could not vote in the original ports they registered in. Representatives of the more than 1.2 million Filipinos in Saudi Arabia testified that many of the homes in the Middle East have no street numbers so letters are usually sent to the home owners whose identities are known to the local post office. So many, if not most, of these Middle East voters will not receive their ballots to cast for the 2007 or 2010 national elections.
At that summit, I informed the Comelec commissioners that I had just testified at September 26, 2011 joint hearing of the House Committee on Suffrage and the House Committee on Overseas Filipinos to discuss a bill amending the 2003 OAV law. I urged the Batasan to remove the provision in the OAV law that requires overseas Filipinos wishing to register to vote to first execute an “affidavit of intent to return” to the Philippines within three years and if they fail to return within that three-year time period, they may face penalties that include imprisonment of up to one year.
If the OAV voter registers to vote in 2004, after executing this affidavit, and then votes again in the 2007 or 2010 national elections, then they would be providing incriminating evidence that they were still abroad and had not returned to the Philippines as they vowed to do when they signed the affidavit. They risked harsh penalties if they exercised their right of suffrage.
Then OAV Comelec Commissioner Armando Velasco, who also testified at the Batasan joint hearing (stating the Comelec’s full support for removing the affidavit to return clause in the OAV law), invited me to the OAV Summit. He testified that overseas Filipinos who register to vote have to check a box in the Comelec voter registration form declaring that they had executed the affidavit to return. If the box is not checked, then the OAV registration application is rejected.
Atty. Laguatan suggested that the Comelec should ignore the “unconstitutional” affidavit to return requirement as former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban explained in an article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (Enfranchising ‘duals’ and ‘greens’, September 17, 2011) where he wrote that that the unanimous 2006 Philippine Supreme Court decision in Nicolas-Lewis vs. Comelec not only enfranchised dual citizens – extending to them the right to vote without the residence requirement – but that this also logically extends to “single citizens” as it would be a violation of the “equal protection of the law” if interpreted otherwise. Why should dual citizens have more rights than single citizens?
“Since the goal of the residency qualification is accomplished by the globalization of information, then the purpose of the law is fulfilled. Our brothers and sisters abroad should be allowed to vote during national elections without anachronistic roadblocks. After all, being the single biggest source of foreign exchange, they keep our economy afloat,” Panganiban wrote.
If the Comelec has the discretionary power to set aside the draconian requirement of purging overseas voters who did not vote for two consecutive election periods without waiting for Congress to act, then Comelec has the same power to set aside the absurd affidavit of intent to return requirement without having to wait for Congress to act.
At the September 26, 2011 joint hearing at the Batasan, all the Batasan members present (which included House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte) indicated full support for the provision in the bill removing the affidavit to return requirement. Unfortunately, the bill also contained provisions for Internet voting which was more controversial so it has not yet passed Congress.
Without removing the affidavit to return provision, Comelec was only able to register 212,009 OAV voters by August 27, 2012, with barely two months left for OAV voters to register to vote. According to a consul at the San Francisco Philippine Consulate, virtually all of the 1200 new OAV voters were dual citizens who were not required to execute an affidavit to return.
On November 4, 2012, Comelec reported to Sen. Koko Pimentel, chairman of the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation, that the number of OAV voters has reached over 915,000, “the highest number so far in OAV history”. This impressive figure was misleading as it incorporated the 589,000 OAV voters who had already registered in previous years, including the 238,557 who had registered for the 2004 elections but who had not voted in the 2007 and 2010 elections.
Sen. Pimentel commended Comelec for its work. “The desire of our Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) to register and to vote is there, the figures (Comelec) cited are tangible proof of this,” Pimentel said.
After receiving the commendation from the Senate, the Comelec then turned around and retracted its promise to keep the 238,557 OAV voters on a separate list eligible to vote in the May 2013 elections by voting to purge all but 29 of them.
Is this is an example of the “strong and robust marriage” between the Comelec and the OFW community that Commissioner Tagle vowed to “pour greater efforts into”?
Excuse my French but this is bovine dung.
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