Proposal to relax OAV requirement pushed

MANILA, Philippines – Millions of Filipinos abroad may soon find it easier to vote with the removal of a certain provision in the Overseas Absentee Voting (OAV) act that required them to execute an affidavit stating they will return to the Philippines within three years after being registered.

Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, chairman of the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation, sponsored an amended OAV act that will drop Section 5d of the original law, which he described as “a serious obstacle to our citizens’ right to vote.”

“The provision that was removed required immigrants and permanent residents to execute an affidavit stating that they shall come back to the Philippines within three years from approval of their registration as Philippine voters,” Pimentel said in a statement Wednesday.

He said this provision had prevented many Filipinos in the United States and Canada from registering and voting in the past Philippine national elections since the OAV act was passed in 2003.

“In this proposed measure, we have deleted that entire controversial provision to give our Filipino brothers and sisters abroad the right of suffrage without any preconditions,” Pimentel said.

Pimentel believes that more than 10 million Filipinos abroad will register and vote by the 2016 national elections in the Philippines once the amended OAV act is passed. He estimates that there are around 13 million overseas Filipinos.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) announced recently that as of October 30, a total of 950,216 Filipinos overseas have registered to vote for the 2013 midterm elections. The Commission on Elections (Comelec)  said they were targeting a million OAVs for the upcoming elections.

The law also calls on the Comelec “to put in place a system that would allow online registration and voting for all of the estimated 13 million overseas Filipinos,” Pimentel said.

“In 2016, when Filipinos come together as one nation to decide on the next administration, one of our biggest legacies to voters around the world is an OAV law that offers flexibility in terms of new technologies,” he added.

Filipinos abroad remit around $20 billion annually, Pimentel said. “It is only proper that they are empowered to help select national leaders from the president to the senators,” he said.

“They can keep cooking and eating adobo while abroad, and voting for their national candidates in the Philippines, without having the Comelec and even the DFA looking over their shoulders,” Pimentel said.