Missing names mark first OAV day in Dubai

Angelo Galang Timbol has been residing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for 29 years and voting as an absentee voter since 2004.

For this year's elections in Dubai, however, he found himself disenfranchised when he couldn’t find his name from the official voters’ list.

"I voted in 2004 but I was not able to vote in 2007 because I was out of the country and now they’re telling me my name is not on the list. How could that be?" he told officials of the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

To prove the authenticity of his claims, Timbol showed poll officials at the Philippine Consulate in Dubai his voter's identification card, but was told that his ID was registered in Abu Dhabi.

Missing names of registered overseas Filipino voters was among the problems that were encountered by poll inspectors when the month-long automated absentee voting kicked off last Saturday, an online report from Gulf News Web site said.

Consul Edwin Mendoza explained that consul officials have been advising people to check the status of their registration as early as December last year. Under the OAV rules, an absentee voter can only cast votes in the country where he is registered.

"It's good that these problems came out on the first day so we can relay these to the Comelec in Manila," Mendoza said.

Smooth elections

Before the casting of ballots began, Philippine Ambassador to the UAE Grace Relucio Princesa told Gulf news that elections in Dubai would run smoothly since—unlike in Hong Kong and Singapore—manual voting will be conducted there.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis, chairman of the OAV Secretariat, expressed the same view when he said that the nation’s foreign diplomatic posts are prepared to oversee the voting process.

The prediction, however, turned out otherwise when voters like Timbol and Reynaldo Neri started complaining.

Neri, a resident of UAE for 19 years, also failed to find his name on the Dubai voters’ list. Neri— who said he does not even know the Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi—was also told that his name was probably registered in UAE's capital city.

"That's impossible. I registered at the [old] consulate in Al Hamriya together with my wife in 2003. I’ve been in Dubai for 19 years. I don’t even know where the Philippine Embassy is in Abu Dhabi," he said.

From the Dubai, Neri rushed to the Embassy in Abu Dhabi where he was allowed to cast votes. "My name is on their list and I was told that the Comelec probably just placed the names without assessing if the voter had registered in Dubai or Abu Dhabi," he said.

Low voter turnout

Aside from missing voters, the Philippine Consulate in Dubai also recorded a low voter turn out, said Gulf News. There are about 30,642 registered voters in Dubai.

Migrante secretary general Emmanuelle Morona blamed low ratio between the number of registered absentee voters and the number of 450,000 Filipino expat population in Dubai on the government's alleged poor information campaign.

"Only a small number will participate in the actual elections because of the lack of information from the time voters were supposed to register up to this time that the actual voting has started," Morona said, adding that Comelec officials did not even post the complete voters list in the consulates premises.

"How will one know if he’s qualified to vote? It's not easy to go the consulate [in Al Ghusais] and that alone the time and distance will turn off people from voting," he said.

Consular officials dismissed the allegations.

"We did all that can be done to reach out to the community. In almost all events, the Consul-General as well as other consular officers and staff always make it a point to relay all the necessary information pertaining to OAV," Mendoza said.

He added that there was no need to post the voters list since it can be accessed on the Comelec Web site.

Not remiss in duties

Adelio Cruz, first secretary of the Embassy in Abu Dhabi, likewise denied being remised in their duties.

"We were not remiss in informing the community. We went to churches, attended events and community meetings and used [e-mail] groups to relay everything. Do they expect us call each and every one?" Cruz told Gulf News.

The overseas absentee voting will last until May 10. Polling precincts Dubai will be open daily even on weekends from 8.30am to 3pm to accommodate voters.

At least six polling precincts, each manned by three election inspectors, were opened for the 30,642 registered voters in Dubai and the northern emirates. – KBK, GMANews.TV