By Vir
B. Lumicao
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| OV registration used to be done in the Consulate's lift lobby (File) |
There has
been an upsurge in the number of Hong Kong-based Filipinos registering to vote
in next year’s general elections, to be held a month before Presidential
Rodrigo Duterte wraps up his six-year term.
The
Consulate confirmed today, Aug 9, the sudden increase in registration, after
months of a noticeable slowdown because of the pandemic. The registration
closes on Sept 30.
Consul
General Raly Tejada said the registration fever began last month and has been
going on these past Sundays, when most Filipino migrant workers are taking
their rest day.
Aside
from electing a new president in the May 9, 2022 general elections, voters will
also vote for a new vice-president, senators, as well as provincial and
municipal officials.
“Yes, I
can confirm that there is a sudden upsurge in voter registration since last
month. Busiest day is Sunday with at least 200 registrants queuing up to
register,” ConGen Tejada said in reply to an online inquiry.
He said
he hopes many more would-be voters will come and list up in the remaining eight
weeks of registration, which began on Dec 16, 2019.
“Hopefully
there will be more, but I encourage our nationals to avoid coming on a Sunday
due to the huge volume of people,” ConGen Tejada said. He encouraged them to
come from Monday to Thursday, which is when the PCG is less crowded.
The
consul general admitted overseas voter registration took a blow from the
pandemic, especially at its height when registrants came in trickles. He said
it was only these last two months that registration picked up.
“Wala
din namang choice ang mga kababayan dahil sa
restrictions at social distancing measures. But I am glad they are now
coming to register,” ConGen Tejada said.
He did
not give a target number for the current overseas voting registration.
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| Consul Quintin says the pandemic continues to have an adverse effect on OV registration |
Consul Robert Quintin, who is in charge of the PCG’s
election preparations, said:
“As far as targets go, we’re not looking at that anymore obviously because of
the pandemic, which has practically put us on hold, and it still continues to
affect registration.
“Athough we’ve had a surge in the last few weeks, we’re just
trying to register as many as we can and, if we’re lucky, we might still hit a
better-than-expected result.”
There
were 87,441 registered voters in the 2019 mid-term elections, when the Filipino
electorate chose new senators.
That
year, the Commission on Elections deactivated more than 16,000 overseas voters
in Hong Kong for their failure to vote in the
previous three overseas elections.
As in
previous mid-term elections, the number of registered voters in 2019 was lower
than the 93,000 who registered for the May 2016 elections, when Duterte was
elected into office.
But
traditionally, the total registration figure should have picked up again.
However, the latest Consulate figures are not readily available.
Just
weeks after the Consulate announced the resumption of voter registration in
December 2019, Hong Kong was gripped by the
Covid-19 contagion.
That
forced the host government to impose health protocols designed to halt the
spread of the virus, and tighten them intermittently, depending on the number
of new cases being reported on a daily basis.
Foreign
consulates in Hong Kong, including the PCG,
complied with the host government’s social distancing directives, including
minimizing face-to-face transactions and shortening business hours.
 |
PCG cut down on face-to-face transactions due to the pandemic
This
restricted the PCG’s ability to reach out to more potential registrants, unlike
in previous elections when staff and volunteers were deployed for
territory-wide campaigning as well as mobile registration.
Instead
of doing outreach registration, the Consulate has been promoting the Facebook
page of the Commission on Elections Office for Overseas Voting which allows
Filipino voters to make the following types of transactions: |
·
Registration
(certification) as overseas voters filed by those with existing voting records
·
Reactivation of
overseas voter registration records
·
Updating of addresses
and contact information, and
·
Transfer of voting
records from different international locations and from overseas.
However,
the Comelec’s step-by-step guide to online voting registration appears too hard
for some OFWs. This shows on the workers’ queries in the comment box of the
Consulate’s post, where most of them were asking, “How do we register?”
Those who
have just moved to Hong Kong or failed to vote
in the past two overseas elections need to register to be able to cast their
ballots in next year’s polls.
To find
out whether you need to register or not, please check the certified list of
overseas voters in Hong Kong by clicking the
following link: https://hongkongpcg.dfa.gov.ph/site-administrator/announcements/634-clov
