Overseas Absentee Voting starts... happy & proud to have been part of the advocacy for its implementation

The Overseas Absentee Voting and the Citizenship Retention and Re-acquisition Acts of 2003

Today, April 10, 2010, overseas absentee voting started. 589,830 Filipinos abroad are qualified to exercise their right to vote in the 2010 general elections.

It was during the 2004 national elections that overseas Filipinos were able to vote for the very first time. Thanks to the efforts of overseas Filipino organizations and home-based NGOs as well as individuals who campaigned without let-up for the passage into law of the Absentee Voting Bill.

Very little, or none at all, is known of the fact that it was probably The Philippines to the World Entertainment Foundation, Inc. (PWEFI), which I founded, that started the ball rolling when as early as July 2000 it launched a signature drive to urge our lawmakers to act on the Absentee Voting Bill and Dual Citizenship Bill. As early as 1998 this writer had already written then-President Fidel Ramos about the absentee voting bill.

Although calls by different groups and individuals for the passage into law of both bills have already been made since the mid-90s, no sincere effort seemed to have been initiated. It could be said, therefore, that the PWEFI initiative was the first one.

The PWEFI signature campaign – which was started in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - immediately drew support from kababayans and initially collected 700 signatures. However, it lost momentum and was eventually sidelined when then-President Joseph Estrada’s impeachment proceedings hugged the headlines. Nevertheless, the 700 signatures were submitted to the Senate. 2001 saw the resurgence of a similar but more vigorous campaign, this time under the initiative of other Filipino organizations overseas and at home. Foremost among these groups was the OFWNet Foundation which lobbied unrelentlessly, and individuals - like Ellene Sana, Noel Escuela, Cathy Ledesma, Dr. Chee Garcia, Bert Barriga and Marvin Bionat, to name a few – who lobbied tirelessly for the campaign until the bill’s eventual passage into law on February 13, 2003 as Republic Act 9189 known as the Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2003. The Dual Citizenship Bill, on the other hand, was passed into law on August 29, 2003 as Republic Act 9225, known as the Citizenship Retention and Re-acquisition Act of 2003.

This writer is quite proud of having been part of the initiative that eventually enabled overseas Filipinos to have a say on who should lead our country.

Read the Philippine Star article about the start of absentee voting for the 2010 elections: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=565099&publicationSubCategoryId=63