Overseas votes cost P1,310 each
By Norman Bordadora
They spent so much but showed very little for it.
They spent so much but showed very little for it.
Civil society groups Solidarity Philippines and Kontra Daya on Tuesday said they were bringing to the attention of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) the inadequacies and lapses committed by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) during the May 13 balloting.
Overseas absentee voting (OAV) turnout was way below the Commission on Elections’ hoped-for 60 percent in major precincts around the globe. Based on available reports, the overseas vote may be even less than the 26 percent achieved in 2010 despite the stepped up OAV campaign, with some major areas logging only five to eight percent voters turnout.
The results of overseas voters have yet to be officially tallied. However, here are unofficial results from different parts of the world.
Chiz Escudero tops the poll in the United States, where only 11 percent of some 125,604 registered voters cast their ballots.
The mayor of Kalayaan town in Palawan, along with around 200 people, were harassed by two unidentified vessels while they were traveling by sea before midnight Thursday, the local official said.
The international observers of the 2013 midterm elections have recommended the enactment of a law against political dynasties. “Mechanisms to enforce the constitutional provision against political dynasties should be legislated,” the election observers from the Compact for Peaceful and Democratic Elections-International Observers Mission (Compact-IOM) said as they ended their 10-day monitoring of the country’s elections.
International observers said Monday’s balloting was generally credible, but they expressed concerns over lack of secrecy in the voting process, long queues, vote-buying and breakdowns of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines.
The leader of a team of international election observers on Monday questioned why classroom desk chairs marked “Donated by Gov. Nanay Baby Pineda” were being used in a polling precinct at the Rizal Elementary School in Barangay (village) Concepcion here.
Eight of 30 international election observers have picked Pampanga as the place to monitor Monday’s elections, seeing the province as a ground for “iconic electoral battles” such as that between Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and lawyer Vivian Dabu, and Gov. Lilia Pineda and former Gov. Ed Panlilio, a former Catholic priest.
The first eight winning senators could be proclaimed within 48 hours from the close of the voting on Election Day, Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair Sixto Brillantes Jr. said on Tuesday.
Philippine Ambassador to Portugal Philippe Lhuillier has found a way to reach Filipino seafarers and allow them to vote ahead of the May 13 elections.
