'Rejected OAV applicants are mostly immigrants'

A total of 4,302 overseas absentee voting (OAV) registrants for next year’s Philippine elections have been disqualified so far, as against 115,831 applications that have been approved, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has said.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said most of the rejected applications were due to registrants’ failure or refusal to make a commitment to return to the Philippines after voting in absentia. As noted in the OAV guide prepared by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), a Filipino citizen who is recognized as immigrant or a permanent resident in a host country can be allowed to vote under the OAV law if he/she executes an affidavit declaring that he/she shall resume actual physical permanent residence in the Philippines not later than three years from approval of registration. Jimenez said that as of August 26, a total of 201,328 have applied for OAV registration worldwide. He rejected the complaint of Migrante International that the Comelec had been “sluggish" in approving applications for OAV registration. Migrante earlier claimed that the Comelec’s Resident Election Registration Board (RERB) have met only twice this year and that it has approved only 17,000 applications for OAV registration. “The COMELEC’s RERB have conducted five hearings already; and contrary to the claims of Migrante, the RERB have acted upon 115,831 applications for OAV registration," Jimenez said on the Comelec's web blog. He said the RERB have been meeting every month since April and that it will continue hearing OAV applications until October 2009. Registration ends on Monday, August 31. The United States of America (USA) has the most number of OAV registrants, with 29,595; followed by China with 21,204 and United Arab Emirates (UAE) with 15,164. - GMANews.TV