275 Filipinos not on Certified List of Voters, file ‘complaint’

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KUWAIT CITY, April 19: Around 275 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Kuwait have filed a complaint at the Philippine Embassy in Kuwait after being disenfranchised and were not able to vote in the Philippine national elections via the Overseas Absentee Voting (OAV) that commenced on April 9 and will end on May 9, 2016.

The disenfranchised OFWs claimed that they have registered for the OAV but their names were not included in the Certified List of Voters. Gerardo Punzalan went to the Philippine Embassy in Faiha last weekend with his wife Divina to cast his vote but was dismayed after learning that his name was not in the registered list of voters.

“I felt so bad because I wasn’t able to vote. I always cast my vote every election together with my wife. I even showed them my valid voter’s ID but I wasn’t able to vote. Luckily, my wife was able to vote,” he lamented.

Another voter, Frederick Acampado who took his off from work on Tuesday to cast his vote expressed frustration that his name was not in the Certified List of Voters. “Just imagine the hassle. Waste of time, money and effort but most importantly, I failed to exercise my right of suffrage. I was denied of my basic right. This is not fair,” he stated.

Punzalan and Acampado were among the 275 OFWs whose names were not included in the Certified Voters List prompting the Philippine Embassy to file a petition addressed to the Chairman of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the Philippines, Andres Bautista appealing for the inclusion of the mentioned OFWs in a supplemental list of voters for the automated elections of 2016. In a two-page petition signed by Philippine Consul General Atty Raul Dado, it seeks the Comelec’s permission to allow the almost 300 disenfranchised OFWs to vote in the automated elections for President, Vice-President, 12 Senators and Party-list Representative in pursuit of free, orderly and honest elections.

Two petitions have been forwarded by the embassy to the Comelec, the first one submitted last week contained 140 names while the second one filed on Monday had 135 names in the list. “We would like to call on our fellow Filipinos to come to the embassy as early as now to vote so we will know if you have any issue such as this one and we can still do something to rectify your voting status. Please do not wait for the last minute or last day of the OAV,” urged Dado.

He added that they hope to hear from the Comelec regarding the embassy’s petition within a week or two as he expressed optimism that those in the petition list will be allowed to vote. As of Tuesday, there are almost 4,000 OFWs out of the 49,000 registered voters in Kuwait who went to the embassy and cast their votes. Based on the Comelec data, there are a total of 1,376,067 overseas voters registered for this year’s elections — the highest number of Filipino overseas voters, ever.

There are 85 Philippine posts overseas, with 30 using the automated election system while 26 are using the personal manual voting system and another 26 have adopted the postal manual voting system. Kuwait is among the posts that uses the automated election system this year. Other posts include Abu Dhabi (UAE); Beirut, Lebanon; Doha, Qatar; Dubai, UAE; Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Kuwait; Manama, Bahrain; Al Khobar Saudi Arabia; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Tel Aviv, Israel.

Other posts are in the Asia Pacific such as Hong Kong; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Osaka, Japan; Seoul, South Korea; Singapore, Tokyo, Japan; in North and Latin America such as Agana, Guam; Chicago, USA; Honolulu, USA; Los Angeles, USA; New York, USA; Ottawa, Canada; San Francisco, USA; Toronto, Canada; Vancouver, Canada; Washington DC, USA; and in Europe namely London, United Kingdom; Madrid, Spain; Milan, Italy and Rome, Italy. The Philippine Embassy in Faiha is open daily for the OAV from 8 am-5 pm and on May 9 at 12 noon.

By Michelle Fe Santiago Arab Times Staff

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